The deutsche Bank surprisingly achieved a record profit in the second quarter thanks to its investment bank. The Pre-tax result was with 2.68 billion euros only slightly lower than in the same period of the record year 2007, as the DAX group announced in Frankfurt. The bottom line is one Profit of 1.64 billion euros – ten percent more than last year, but slightly less than 2007.
In the second half of the year, the bank plans to invest a further 500 million euros in buying back its own shares. “Together with our record results so far this year, these developments strengthen our confidence that we can exceed our targets for 2028,” said CEO Christian Sewing. The manager, who took over the management of the financial institution in April 2018 after several years of crisis, set the goal of increasing the return on equity to more than 13 percent. In the second quarter it was 11 percent. Return on equity indicates how efficiently banks use capital to generate profits.
Artificial intelligence (AI) opens up “new opportunities to create added value for our customers and achieve additional savings,” emphasized Sewing. In the period from April to June 2026, there was a particularly strong increase in the investment bank, which, for example, earns money through financing and advising companies as well as supporting IPOs and securities issues: The division’s pre-tax profit rose by almost 60 percent to 1.3 billion euros compared to the same period last year.