Deutsche Bank reported a fall in revenues at its investment banking unit on Wednesday, but still managed to beat expectations and post its fifth consecutive quarter of profit.
The bank reported a net income of 194 million euros ($225 million) for the three months to September. Analysts had estimated a net income of 135 million euros for the third quarter, according to data from Refinitiv. It’s the bank’s longest streak of quarterly profit since 2012, according to Reuters.
The investment banking unit was again under the spotlight with profit before tax down from a year ago. Deutsche Bank said fixed income and currency trading saw net revenue drop by 12% year-on-year as markets showed less volatility.
“Revenues at the group level were up by 2%, in the investment bank they were down 6%. But again, it is a very strong third quarter,” James von Moltke, chief financial officer at Deutsche Bank, told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach.
Going forward, Deutsche Bank believes that a different interest rate environment, digitization and other factors will keep supporting its business. “[There are] lots of things going on that should benefit our business model over the next decade,” von Moltke added.
Other highlights for this quarter:
- Provision for credit losses stood at 37 million euros, down from 53 million euros a year ago.
- Revenues rose to 6 billion euros from 5.9 billion euros a year ago.
- CET 1 ratio, a measure of bank solvency, stood at 13%, down from 13.2% at the end of the previous quarter.
The German lender also reiterated its targets for 2022. Its shares sank 2.7% in early deals Wednesday but are higher by about 32% year-to-date. It had smashed estimates for the second quarter despite another slide in trading revenues.
Inflation ‘more than transitory’
One of the main issues for market players at this point is whether higher consumer prices are here to stay.
Central banks have thus far argued that price pressures are temporary, but many disagree with them.
“It will be more than transitory,” von Moltke told CNBC. “There’s good reasons to think it normalizes over time as some of these particular disruptions flow through the system.”
“But we are seeing, again, the corporate clients are telling us that they see more persistence in the inflationary pressures in their businesses than we would have liked to have seen,” he added.
