Deutsche Bank beats a retreat

Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest bank, has presented its latest plan to get out of trouble. But is it all too little too late? Ben Judge reports.

Christian Sewing © Getty Images

Christian Sewing: a step in the right direction1
(Image credit: Christian Sewing © Getty Images)

Deutsche Bank is "throwing in the towel on its ambitions to go toe-to-toe with the big Wall Street firms" in investment banking, says Anjuli Davies in The Daily Telegraph. Germany's biggest lender has announced a restructuring plan that will involve shutting its equities division and axing 18,000 staff. A decade ago, Deutsche seemed to have beaten the big Wall Street banks at their own game, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian, but now it is a "national embarrassment" worth less than a quarter of Spanish rival Santander.

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.