Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (DB) Q2 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you for joining us for our second quarter and first half year 2026 results call. As usual, our Chief Executive Officer Christian Saving will speak first, followed by our Chief Financial Officer Raja Akram. The presentation, as always, is available to download in the Investor Relations section of our website at db. com. Before we get started, let me just remind you that the presentation contains forward-looking statements We will now turn the call over to the pre-cautionary warning at the end of our material.

With that, let me hand over to Christian.

Thank you Silke and good morning everyone. We are very pleased with the performance we delivered and the momentum we achieved in the first half of 2026. We continued to invest in our global house bank, which paves the way for further growth, efficiency gains, and value creation for shareholders. We grew revenues to 17.2 billion euros, while on track to reach our full-year ambition of around 33 billion euros.

This momentum enabled us to deliver a post-tax profit of 4.1 billion euros, our highest ever for a half year. We made further progress on our key ratios. Post-tax ROTE increased to 11.9%, while our cost-income ratio improved to 60.9%, despite the impact of SVA-accredited strategic actions we took the second quarter. Our CQ1 capital ratio was 13.9% in line with our operating range. Strong organic capital generation enabled us to support business growth and make distribution deductions in line with our 60% payout ratio. And today we are taking the next step. We are announcing a new 500 million This is the first time we are executing a buyback from the current year's earnings, a clear sign of the earnings momentum and confidence we have built in the first half.

This momentum positions us well to deliver our 2026 objectives and reinforces our confidence in achieving our 2028 targets. Now, a few words on the progress we made on scaling our global house bank on slide 3. We made tangible progress across all three levers of our strategy. We delivered revenue growth of 5% with strong contribution from the investment bank and focus growth areas. We maintained strict capital discipline. We announced the sale of the private banks India We will be FBA positive upon closing next year, and we took a number of additional capital accretive measures across the franchise.

Third, we progressed our scalable operating model. We continued to simplify our operating model in the private bank and made targeted investments in technology and front-to-back capabilities across the group. For example, in the corporate bank, we continued investing in our cash management capabilities and strengthening our coverage and sales platforms with multinational companies. Our franchise performance indicators are all positive, with significant business volume growth across businesses. Assets under management grew by nearly €270 billion, or 16% year-on-year, to €1.92 trillion, supported by record inflows of €56 billion across private banks and asset management in the first half-year.

Loans increased by 4% year-on-year, driven by momentum in the corporate bank and fixed financing. Deposit rose by 7% year-on-year with strength across the corporate bank and private bank. Furthermore, we delivered strong performance across all our divisions, as you can see on slide 4. All divisions delivered returns on tangible equity of 12% or higher. The private bank's transformation continues. We made progress on our target ratios despite absorbing costs relating to continued investments and the exit of its India franchise, and grew client assets by more than 55 billion euros in the first half-year. The division has now completed the branch closures plan for 2026 and continued to strengthen wealth management coverage. Asset management grew assets under We have a great deal with the investment of investment in the second quarter alone, which included record net client flows of 25 billion euros.

The corporate bank continued to grow business volumes in both loans and deposits, reflecting the strengths of our corporate client's franchise. And the investment bank supported clients through hidden market volatility, reinforcing our position as a trusted partner and gateway for investing in Europe, while also growing EMEA market share in investment banking and capital markets. Based on disclosures from peers so far, we are confident that with our record second quarter performance, we have We also expanded our market share in FIT. In our investment details in November, we made clear that we view an ROTE of greater than 30% as a flaw, dependent on the successful execution of our strategy. We also identified several trends that could provide further upside over time, and we briefly update you on how those trends are developing today.

First, German structural reforms, including health and pension reforms, are taking shape. The government's 34-point plan should boost economic activity in the years ahead. Fiscal expansion is slowly but steadily gaining momentum. Investment spending in the infrastructure and defense sectors has started. Our corporate bank and investment bank are ideally placed to capture opportunities. We are seeing encouraging steps in private pension reforms. With Deutsche Bank's combination of 19 million private bank customers in Germany, wealth management expertise, and Germany's leading asset management franchise, we are well-placed to support existing and new clients with investment solutions and help them participate in opportunities as the market develops. The second trend is AI, which is evolving even faster than we expected. And the potential benefits for us are becoming clearer.

We are embedding AI across workflows to boost productivity and drive scalable growth. We also see scope to enhance client experience, deepen client coverage, and capture share of wallets through AI-driven intelligence. This gives us potential for both incremental operating efficiencies and rapid growth in the future. The third trend is savings and investment union. Across Europe, momentum is building, especially as pension reforms are top of the agenda in Germany. Our asset-gathering businesses, alongside the investment bank and corporate bank, are very well placed to capture opportunities from more integrated markets, new frameworks, and growing investment flows as and when they arise, But also to provide clients with access to evolving capital markets and assist with financing needs. The fourth trend we discussed in November is a more level regulatory playing field.

We are encouraged to see an increasing policy focus on competitiveness, simplification and growth in Europe. Over time, we expect this to be supported on several dimensions. The European Commission is taking a number of initiatives, including the recent proposal with a broader legislative package expected in early 2027. We believe that among European Bank regulators there is both increasing flexibility and political will to address some of the unintended consequences of CRR3 while not compromising on resilience. This includes support for lending activities such as mortgage and financing for unrated corporates by addressing the transitional arrangements currently in place. Temporary relief on FRTB as soon as January 2027, an expected permanent relief by a legislative package later on, would also maintain the competitiveness of European banks in trading and capital markets.

In addition, efforts to streamline the EU macroprudential framework could lead to fewer buffers and more simplified requirements across member states. In other words, across all four areas, the trends are positive. Of course, the speed and exact shape of change is hard to predict, but the overall direction is encouraging. What this means for us, first, our financial and strategic progress reinforces our confidence in delivering an ROTE of greater than 30% in 2028, and the developments in these trends strengthen our view that there is considerable upside to our targets.

Second, we are actively positioning the bank to capture these opportunities through targeted investment, focused capital deployment, and continued engagement with policymakers. With that, let me hand over to Roger.

Thank you, Christian, and good morning. We delivered another solid second quarter with net revenues of 8.5 billion euros, a return on tangible equity of 11%, and a CET1 ratio of 13.9%. Profit before tax increased by 11% year-on-year, while the cost-income ratio improved to 63%, despite the impact of SVA and Creative Strategic Actions in the quarter, including the exit of private banks and their franchises.

The revenues were up 9% year-on-year, making these 20 consecutive quarters of revenue growth. All divisions contributed to this revenue growth, led by the performance of the investment bank in strong contributions from our focused growth areas.

C&O also contributed positively to revenues this quarter, mainly due to valuation and target differences, which we expect to revert over the remainder of the year, without three-year C&O guidance remaining relatively unchanged. We continue to see strong client activity across our asset-gathering businesses with record net flows in asset management and another quarter of robust inflows in private bank, supporting a 16% year-on-year increase in assets under management, which are now 1.9 trillion euros.

Continued corporate bank development growth reinforces the broader momentum behind our client-led growth strategy. Overall, despite a continued dynamic backdrop and specific strategic measures taken during the quarter, we delivered revenue growth ahead of cost growth year-on-year and maintained strong capital discipline, fully in line with our 2028 objectives.

Let me now turn to revenues in more detail, starting on slide 8. We saw strong growth in the private bank underpaid by both wealth management and personal banking, while asset management also contributed positively. The corporate bank delivered sequential growth as promised. We were encouraged by the continued underlying momentum in the franchise, supported by higher loans and deposit volumes, and signs that activity in Germany is picking up.

Investment bank results were driven by a record-setting order by a leading fixed franchise, supported by clear improvement in investment banking and capital markets. Looking at revenue composition, net interest income demonstrated a solid increase driven by volume growth and hedge roll over with trading and under-income broadly flat year-end. That commission and fee income performance showed continued strength, medical income growth, and wealth management, as well as seasonally stronger performance within institution-planned services in the corporate bank. Overall, our non-investment banking businesses continue to contribute more than 60% to our revenue mix.

Let me now move to NII on slide 9. NII was solid at 3.6 billion euros across the key banking book segments and other funding, with both loan and deposit revenues contributing positively compared to the prior year quarter. In the second quarter, the positive-related NII continued to benefit from underlying volume growth and the contribution from our hedge portfolio, where loan NII benefited from strong volume growth.

Looking at the divisions, in the private bank, margins continued to progress steadily, particularly in deposits with volumes broadly stated in the quarter. The corporate bank that interest income also went up sequentially with strong underlying NII growth across growth deposits and loans supported by increased client activity, resulting in volume growth.

In fixed financing, revenues remain strong, benefiting from low growth. For the four-year, we expect NII across key banking segments and other funding to slightly exceed our prior guidance of around 14 million euros, and benefits from recent re-decisions have become more pronounced in 2027 and 2028, reflecting our structural hedging approach.

As always, you can find details on the benefit of the long-term hedge portfolio roll-over on slide 25 of the appendix. Turning to slide 10, non-interest expenses were up 8% euro a year at around 5.3 billion euros. The year-on-year cost increase reflects an increase in fixed pay and performance-related compensation, the absence of prior year litigation releases, and one-off costs of close to 100 million euros related to the recently announced MTA of the Pied Bank's India franchise.

Exteriorly aforementioned litigation releases in the prior quarter, As planned, incremental investments increased to around 200 million euros, including severance costs of slightly less than 100 million euros, mainly reflected early bank operating volume optimization. The remaining investments should focus on technology and targeted hiring across wealth management, IBCM, as well as expansion of corporate bank solutions to support a capital-like growth agenda. Importantly, operating efficiencies of around 200 million euros, mainly through workforce and targeted operating model measures, continue to largely offset these incremental investments. As of 7 April, we have capital and investment plans aligned with external environment. As we continue to execute those plans and efficiency benefits accelerate, we expect positive jobs to become increasingly invisible in the next two years.

With that, let me turn to provision for credit losses on slide 11. Starting with asset quality, overall portfolio performance remains strong. The vision for credit analysis was $460 million. As previously discussed, and consistent with our discipline approach to managing financial resources, we took further journey in action to build a scale portfolio and improve our overall risk profile via the flat exit of certain non-performing CIE exporters.

These actions had an impact on approximately 10 basis points in the quarter, and there will be The final question is, is the overall gap rate created once executed. Extending usable for your actions, CRS provisions would have been lower or lower. Separately, we released a portion of the management overlays. Underline portfolio performance, it remained in line with expectations, supported by normalized average provision rate of roughly case parity basis points through the 2020 date.

Turning to capital on slide 12, starting with the CET1 ratio, we added a quarter at 13.9 percent, up 11 basis points compared to the first quarter in line with our operating range. Then income net deductions for AT1 coupons accumulate 45 basis points, reflecting strong second-order earnings, while deductions on distribution of 47 basis points represents the 60% payout ratio that we committed to starting with 2026 financials.

And the $5 million EUR share buyback announced today has no incremental impact on our CT1 ratio, as it is fully covered by CT1 capital deductions. The other category increased by 11 basis points due to equity compensation and reduced capital reductions, mainly from lower-deferred tax assets. Risk-weighted assets increased by €5,000, excluding FXFX over €1 billion. The main value of this increase was business growth, notably growth, and loans and commitments alongside guaranteed funds and asset management. This was partially offset by increased RWA benefits from sécurization and reduced CBA risk-related assets.

We plan to launch new SACC platforms in the second half of the year to create additional capital capacity. Lastly, the other category of risk-related assets includes effects of model calibrations. Let's now turn to divisional performance, starting with the product bank, slide 14. The private bank continues to deliver tangible progress, supported by robust revenue momentum, sustained asset gathering, and discipline executional strategy of priorities.

The better tangible equity was 11%, and the cost-income ratio stood at 70%, despite absorbing the upfront costs related to the divestiture of the private bank's India franchise, as well as second's costs. The transaction supports a sharper focus on scale and competitive strength. Extruding the impact of the investor, return on investment equity will have been approximately 13 percent, and the cost-income ratio 66 percent, highlighting the strength of the underlying business performance.

The revenues increased by 80 percent, driven by a 10 percent growth in net interest income, and an 80 percent rise in net commission and fee income, with both personal banking and wealth management contributing. Personal revenue revenues grew by 6%, mainly from higher revenues from deposits, while month-measure revenues increased by 11%, driven by investment products and deposits. Lining to the continued to show solid momentum, with net A1 flows of $9 billion, primarily into investment products, with blind assets rising by 7% to almost $850 billion in the first six months. The positive increased 4% zero-year, driven by underlined campaign inflows and wealth management growth.

Loan development remained aligned with that strategy, driven by continued expansion in wealth management lending, and offset by targeted reductions in non-SPA career, retail portfolios, and the classification of India franchise as hell for sale. Exterminating the aforementioned actions, private bank loans were ignored by 2% a year. The private bank continues to rush on its branch network, having completed all 100 planned branch closes for 2026, and has already onboarded 116 wealth management coverage hires when on track towards a target of 250-plus coverage hires. Non-interest expects rose by 8% year-on-year, reflecting the impact of the aforementioned debesiture and continued incremental investments, We expect the cost of future growth, hiring, and other investment initiatives to increase in the second half a year, when we regain flexibility in the placing.

Credit quality remains resilient, and provision for client losses is in line with expectations. The earlier increase on the material driven by water releases in the prior year period. Turning to slide 15, asset management delivered a solid quarter, benefiting from favorable market conditions, stronger basic flows, and improving trends across selected asset classes. Ordinary revenues increased 4% year-on-year, primarily driven by higher management fees, up 13% year-on-year, supported by higher average asset management and stronger long-term growths. Sequentially, a profound risk of a lower cut to the recognition of significant fees from an infrastructure fund in the first quarter.

Non-interest expenses increased by 7% year-on-year, reflecting higher business activity, including water-driven costs and share price-related compensation effects. The increases are aligned in the growth initiatives and numbers. Turning to flows, net flows to the record 25 billion euros in the quarter, including 13 billion euros of cash inflows. Long-term net flows are now into 12 billion euros, driven by continued strength in passive products, where X-trackers remain well-positioned to continue capturing strong net flows and supported by positive contributions from active asset classes. When an active, SQI maintains strong momentum while active are creating return-to-volume net flows, benefiting from further improved investment performance and client demand across selected strategies.

Total assets in management increased to almost 1.2 trillion euros, up 18% over the year. The expected stable market effects, net flows, and effects upwards, partly offset by infrastructure-related asset payouts. For further details, please refer to DWS's disclosure on the Investor Relations website.

Let us move to the corporate bank on slide 16 before closing with the investment bank. The corporate bank once again delivered a strong return on tangible equity of, of, 16.4 percent and a cost-income ratio of 62 percent, sustaining its high level of profitability. As guided previously we now see interest rate and FX headwinds diminishing while positive business momentum has become more pronounced Second quarter revenue is at 1 billion euros up 1 euro a year compared against a very strong prior year benefits and the remaining impact of LATAC headworks Sequentially, corporate bank revenues increased by 5%, driven by seasonally strong debt-conditioned fee and institutional private services, and higher business volumes in corporate treasury services.

Business volumes were strong, with average deposit and loans both higher year-by-year, and sequentially, primarily driven by higher spending deposits in corporate gas management and higher loans in trade finance. Now, interest expenses were slightly higher, but as volume of growth, franchise investments, and the non-recurrence of a prior litigation provision release were partially or cost managed. Provision for credit losses remained well-dertained, reflecting solid underlying portfolio quality.

I will now turn to the Investment Bank on slide 17. Revenues for the second quarter were 19% higher year-on-year, driven by a record second quarter, performance in thick and significantly high revenues at 90% of the year. Significant year-on-year revenue growth in trade markets was primarily driven by strength in rates and credit trading. Both businesses benefited from a non-repeat of the market volatility seen earlier in the second quarter last year. In addition, rates saw heightened client activity and credit credit benefited from a strong I will now turn the call over to management for a strong environment for distressed product trading.

Its financing performance continued to be robust, with revenues essentially flat compared to a strong prior year. We read to IBCM, the revenues increased 36% year-on-year and 17% sequentially, demonstrating clear improvement. The year-on-year increase reflected strong growth toward equity origination and advisory, in line with the strategic rebalancing of IBCM that they indicated IR investment gain. I will see a five-five visibility for the second half of 2026 points to further significant year-on-year revenue.

Now, interest expenses were 6% higher in a year, materially driven by the targeted high combined with performance-related compensation. Loan to a year-on-year was primarily in-state financing driven by the financing and solutions business, including one collateralized asset-back lending while the CRI both remained broadly flat. Provisions for credit losses were 174 million euros and included impacts of aforementioned planned capital-intuitive exits.

From an eerily perspective, these were worn out by impartial release of management overlaid and a non-recurrence of all of these recorded prior to the frame. With that, I will turn to the outlook on slide 18. We are on track to meet our 2026 objectives. Our divisions are performing well, and strong first-hand revenues are putting us firmly on track to comfortably deliver on a revenue emission of around €3300, with further growth in the key banking book NII and other funding, as well as continued growth in that commission field. We continue to poorly base our planned investments throughout the year, generating operating efficiencies, and deliver on a four-year expense guidance in line with our investor-day commitments.

And as we start with the post-quarter results, we've seen increasing signs of potential incremental productivity benefits led by AI and organization simplification versus our earlier assumptions for 2028. As a point, we remain strong, and portfolios are performing in-line with expectations. We remain resilient to potential geopolitical and other risks in the operating environment, and expect our portfolios to remain resilient to those challenges.

On an underlying basis, we continue to expect provision for parent losses to reduce slightly year-old year, And we will continue to evaluate limited targeted actions in both capital relief and for the DEUTSCHE BANK AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT. We remain committed to delivering attractive capital returns. That is why we continue to make CQ1 capital deductions in line with a 60% PR ratio. The $500 million share buyback from the 2026 net income announced today will commence on completion of the $1 billion share buyback which is currently underway.

First half-year profitability raised a solid foundation for strong operating performance in 2026, and you can see this in our businesses, particularly in the private bank where discipline and execution is leading to higher profitability and the corporate bank with business momentum now clearly building. And with that, we look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much, Raja. Operator, we are now ready to take your question.

Good morning, Chris. Thank you for your question. Let me start, and Roger can obviously add on. Let me start with your first question, so to say, on this year's performance, 2026. Look, first of all, really pleased what we have seen over the last six months. It, I think, reinforces the strategy which we have stated at our investor day. And what is actually satisfying me most is that we see this encouraging performance in all four businesses. It's not only driven by one business. It actually demonstrates the strength and the diversification of our franchise. And Chris, to your question then, what does it mean for 2026 from a revenue point of view and from a performance and momentum point of view?

We see this momentum continuing in all four businesses. Private bank and asset management, to be honest, you have seen the assets under management flow. This is continuing. I will get later back to your page five question. But with all that, what is also happening here in Germany, in particular the pension reform, you can see that actually the attention of the people to do something on their own pension and to go for investments is sort of say on a high, and we are benefiting from this. And to be honest, we can also see that in July.

Corporate bank, I'm glad. Actually, we are doing better in the corporate bank in Q2 than we expected. We have seen this increase or this revenue improvement, which we forecasted for Q3 and Q4 already earlier, really led both on the deposit and on the lending side, but also on the fee side. So we are moving into the right direction in the corporate bank, and I would say that this is now a trend which you will continue to see. So we forecast that Q3 and Q4 are sequentially showing better revenues, increasing revenues. So I would say that we see this turnaround in the corporate banks, all the investments we have done, the focus also here on Germany, but on our business banking, mid-cap banking, multinational corporate banking, And institutional cash management is paying off.

So that's good. And then, actually, in the investment bank, I'm very happy. We, I think, have taken, or it looks like that we have taken market share across the board, in particular in the FIG business. It's actually fantastic to see what RAM has done again in Q2. And, you know, with those markets like we have seen it in Q1 and Q2, but also now the constructive start in July, I do believe that given the market position we have, given the risk management needs of the clients, which we see in our day-to-day meetings, I see a very constructive development in FIG. And you can see actually that in the IBCM business, it happened that what we expected, and that is a strong increase in Q2.

And I would say that looking at our pipelines, looking at Q3 and Q4, I actually feel that the second half in the IBCM business is even stronger than the first half. So overall, I would say across the business, of course, always taking into account that in the markets business, the first quarter is the strongest one and we have some seasonality. I'm actually, I remain very confident on the revenue guidance and therefore full confidence in the 33 billion. Again, I want to be always disciplined when it comes to outlook. We have a complex environment out in this world, but I would not be surprised if we can even slightly exceed the $33 billion for the full year.

On the cost side, to be honest, we are not changing our guidance. We always guided for slightly above 21 billion, and that is unchanged. We are continuing to invest into technology, wealth management, IBCM, exactly in line with the plan which we laid out in November. Now, obviously, in case we would see a weaker revenue development, it gives us obviously immediately the flexibility to do something, but we don't see that. And therefore, we leave this guidance on the cost side unchanged. But I'm actually very happy with the discipline, which is really across the bank on the cost management. So then looking at the quality of the loan book and taking it all together, to be honest, I think we will see a strong operating 2026.

I think it's too early to change, so to say, the guidance. Let's leave the guidance there where it is. I love to beat and race, as you know, and I think it's exactly the time to simply keep your head down, work every day, make sure that we keep the momentum, and then I'm actually very positive on 2026.

Now, let me add to immediately and go to 2028, and again, Raja may want to add to that. First of all, everything what I said for 2026, and when I look at the momentum of the businesses, also if I see the client reactions, I was just in Asia, I was before that in the US. You know, the scheme I told you before that actually the world wants to have, in particular in these times, an alternative in Europe, a strong European alternative when it comes to global banking, when it comes to investment banking. This is unbroken, and therefore I would say that actually everything what we are seeing from an operating point of view, the focus also in our business on capital light business, is actually filling me with confidence that we will see that momentum and the overall development of the bank from an operating point of view also in 27 and 28.

So no change to that. I even feel slightly better. Now, you reference page five, and obviously page five gives us more confidence. Look, I'm positive and optimistic on that what has been announced in Germany, in particular over the last six to eight weeks. You know, you asked me rightfully in the first quarter whether Germany is lagging progress, and we were all a bit disappointed with slow reforms in the first 12 months. But I can see actually that competitiveness and growth has been put at the core of the agenda now. And both, or three things, health reform, pension reform, and the 34 reform plan by the government is actually very positive. And you have also seen actually the IFO Institute coming out earlier this week with stronger numbers than we anticipated.

So actually, the kind of tailwind which we see from a German reform point of view is positive and, in my view, will kick in in 27, to a lesser extent in 26. We said that already last time, but I would say that is an upside in 27 and obviously then in 28. In that pension reform, obviously for us as a bank, super positive. And in this regard, I'm actually surprised by the depth of the pension reform, in particular in Pillar 1 and Pillar 3. Pillar 2, I would have loved to see even more, but let's see what the tariff partners are doing about the recommendations. But Pillar 1 and Pillar 3 are a very good incubator for our business, in particular in asset management and in the private bank.

And then, to be honest, I also see good progress, and I'm optimistic when it comes to the latest reports from Brussels for the EU reforms and when it comes to bank competitiveness. I'm glad that items like a review of CRR3, capital buffers, you know, trying to achieve more level playing field has been put into the agenda. And therefore, looking at all of these, I would say, and Raja talked about AI obviously before, I think these upside levers are playing out exactly like we hoped. But that gives me, obviously, all the confidence that we can achieve the larger 30%. And to be honest, if everything is decided like it is announced, and this is now obviously to be shown over the next couple of months, in particular in Germany, I do believe that there is some meaningful upside above the larger 13%.

But again, like I said, for 26, I don't like to change guidance after three or six months after an IDD. Let's beat and race, but the overall environment, very constructive, and most importantly, underlying business really doing well. Okay, super clear.

Thank you, Anki, for your question. Let me take the cost question first, since Christian already spoke about it a little bit, and that would be helpful for me to kind of conclude. So look, as he talked about, we assume at this point that we will get close to our original target. That obviously assumes that we will spend the remaining investment euros in the cadence that we have decided. And obviously, investment spacing is not always precise, depending on technology and things like that. But don't forget that included in our estimate is also almost 400 million of additional productivity that is also coming in the second half of the year. So it's not just that the investments are going at an incremental pace for the second half of the year, but we also have productivity offsetting those.

So that's why we feel very comfortable about the number that we gave. And we think that, as I mentioned last time, I feel very comfortable that we're not going to overshoot that number. In fact, if the pacing comes out a little bit differently, that we may be slightly below. So that's the way I would think about it, that if everything goes according to plan, we should be getting to our number on a pretty even basis. Obviously, we have a couple hundred million of productivity falling out each year, each quarter, and then offset by investment spend for the remaining two quarters. That's how we have planned it, and we'll see how the quarter evolves and how fast we can onboard the clients, how fast we can hire the people that we want to hire.

That obviously dictates the amount of investment spend. In terms of CLP, I think I would just like to reiterate that overall we are seeing better credit trends in 2025, in 2026 versus 2025. I think whether it's private bank where we're seeing very low level of provisions, corporate bank performing according to plan, which was already better than expectations. And on the investment bank, as you noticed, we made a very specific decision and a very targeted decision for around 100 million euros to de-risk our commercial and real estate portfolio and also free up capital sooner than we ordinarily would have. So at this point, our conviction remains that we should be doing better this year versus last year.

That said, if we see another opportunity of around the same magnitude in the second half of the year to do something that is equally capital accretive and equally beneficial for us from a de-risking perspective, we'll consider it. But it depends on whether the market gives us that opportunity to exit certain positions that we think we would like to. But in terms of magnitude, I don't think that we should assume that it will be something that's dramatically more different than what we have already done. And when I look at consensus, that may be actually the high end of where we may end up, even with these actions.

And in the absence of any additional actions, we feel pretty good about our guidance in terms of being lower year over year. But really, the key thing for us is, does it de-risk our commercial real estate portfolio even further? And does it give us capital relief sooner than if you were to just wait on a normal exit?

As I mentioned, we have taken a charge for the India sale, but the benefit will really come once the sale closes. Some of the exits for NPE, we have actually obviously taken the charge, but we are now in the process of executing the sales. So a little bit depends on the pacing on when these offsetting actions happen. So that's why I'm a little bit more cautious about guiding to 14. But I think more importantly, the important part is that we were very clear in our investor day guidance that we have to be sustainably over 14% before we start executing on share buybacks. Now, that's a judgment call of what sustainable means, whether it's one quarter or two quarters or three quarters, but I would think it's definitely more than one quarter.

In addition, as you know, we are doing a pretty major change in our cadence already. We went from 50% to 60%. In addition, this is the first time that we did a share buyback based on six months' worth of earnings, which actually shows a lot of confidence by us, but also from our supervisors, that they allow us to do a share buyback in a year. So I would assume, Tarek, that we will go through another couple of quarters, and when we have much better visibility, at least another quarter or two, for the forward look, then we would think probably about another share buyback application. So I would think that it's normal to assume for now where we are that a six-month cadence is a pretty good one.

We have already, with this announcement, would have done a billion and a half in the first half of the year versus a billion that we did in all of 2025. So we are accelerating quite substantially. So if things go well and we see no reason why the second half of the year should not be as strong, then obviously we'll consider something towards the latter half of the year again. And then once we are sustainably about 14, it is really our intention to put share buybacks at the forefront because we have enough capital to operate the business. And frankly speaking, we are freeing up capital to invest in the business through many other measures, whether it's sales of portfolios, whether it's SRTs, or exiting NPs.

So I think we are able to manage business growth by freeing up capital quite organically.

Tarek, let me address the other two questions on Germany and then on the regulatory front. First of all, I think we also need to watch what is happening. But of course, we have done and we are doing our homework, let me put it this way. And I think actually everybody knows that we looked into a potential situation in 2019, so we know exactly what is possible on revenue synergies and revenue dissynergies.

So you have also seen over the last 12 months that also on senior positions, we have made targeted investments in Germany on the corporate bank side, on the wealth management side, on the private banking side. To honestly benefit from that, because of course we will see that this is a revenue opportunity for us, and we are prepared for that, and of course it's also our duty and obligation to go for that. But now, actually, the timing of that depends on the business. On the corporate bank side, you see far more active discussions with clients already because they obviously plan out, they are trying, so to say, to risk manage their own situation. And therefore, there are lots of discussions on the corporate bank side.

On the private bank side, it depends between retail clients and wealth management clients. On the wealth management side, you also start to have discussions and active discussions. On the retail side, that happens usually once things really happen, if you mean what I'm saying. But I would say given the magnitude of potential revenue dissynergies we would have seen based on our analysis in 2019, that could mean a meaningful opportunity on the revenue side over the next three years. And we will absolutely go for it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have invested into our organization, in particular in Germany. And Fabrizio Claudio and Stefan Hobbs are obviously fully on it. So it's a net positive. The SIU and regulatory changes, look, as I said in my first answer, I think it's too early now to talk about potential increases in terms of ROTE or target revisions.

But clearly, in particular, if you look on all the announced intentions when it comes to CRR3, when it comes to FRTB, when it comes to buffers, when it comes to a review of software amortization, that can have a meaningful impact. Now, Tarek, we are talking about a political process. We are talking about now an announcement which needs to be executed, and therefore we should not front run this process. But everything what I said also to Chris's question on 2028, I'm far more confident not only in exceeding the 13%, and I was already confident in November 25, but I have the highest confidence since then. And now based on our operating performance and the changes we see, for instance, on the regulatory side, now it needs to be approved.

It needs to go into the legislative package and process end of 26, 27. And then I do believe that we see actually a good tailwind in the latter year of 27 and in particular in 28 from a regulatory point of view.

Hi, Kian. It's Christian. Thanks for your questions. Let me take the private bank one and Roger is going for the corporate bank.

Look, my first answer to you on the private bank is actually a very, very nice story. And if you would see me now, I'm smiling because, you know, this operating leverage in the private bank will continue. And we really need to deep dive then into the private bank because what we can see is a constant and continuous cost takeout in particular in the retail business. Because Claudio with his team are following up on all the cost reduction program, whether it's the front-to-back processes. I think it was in our prepared remarks in that we finished already the branch closures, which we had planned for the entire year 2026. It's done at the end of June. And obviously, we can see that costs are moving out.

And then with the investments into the technology, into our digital assistance and digital assistant program, we actually are even improving at the same time the client experience. And therefore, you see in the retail bank also benefiting from all the attention Germany has now on pension and investment that we see rising revenues and at the same time costs coming down. You and I discussed it for years. It was badly needed that we get this operating leverage. We have seen it now quarter by quarter, and it will continue.

Now, on the wealth management side, it's actually a real growth strategy, and you are right. We have hired approximately half of the people we targeted. And as Roger was saying, I mean, we are targeting to do our full investment program for 2026. And that includes that we are targeting to get to the 250 people. Now, it always depends whether at the end of the day we will get these people in, but I'm actually quite happy with the progress. And you are also right that we can see that on the wealth management side that actually they are quicker operational and getting assets under management in than we initially thought. And that next to the general trend which we see in Germany, and again and again with our 19 or 18 million retail clients, that we grow the investment business.

This is coming on top from the wealth management side, which is a pure growth business. So I really do believe that we will see this nice operating leverage in the retail bank, costs further down, given our flow business, and in particular the focus on investment business, also in the retail business, increasing revenues. And wealth management is a very nice growth story. Claudia has shown it now for years.

And last but not least, it's also really nice to see that people simply want to join Deutsche Bank. And that was different two or three years ago. We had difficulties at some point in time to get the right people. Now we don't have that anymore. They want to work for us. And therefore, it's actually a real enjoyable story. Over to you.

Thanks, Christian. Kian, I think on corporate bank, I'm not going to re-repeat, I guess, my last quarter's discussion about the FX and interest rate headwinds, because while they are still there, they are clearly diminishing now, which gives us great confidence that we actually can exit out of this year mid to high single digits, which may not be all the way up to 10, but that actually gives us confidence. Look, it's clear that we are growing fee and commission income in mid-single digits. This quarter, again, we did very well in trust and security services, as well as in structuring fees on trade, finance, and lending. The margins, for the most part, are pretty stable. There's modestly down, but that's honestly, it's not that meaningful given how much of it comes from deposits.

And especially when you look at the hedging strategy that we have, especially in light of the higher interest rates environment versus what we had assumed, we have a much bigger upside and tailwind for 27-20-28 versus what we had assumed, and corporate bank is actually one of the bigger beneficiaries of that upside. So combine the fact that we are growing fees mid-single digits, a much better interest rate outlook, rationalization of our portfolio, which was low yielding, which we are continuing to do on the trade side, and the fact that Christian talked about that this is on the back of Germany not even being full speed yet, gives us a lot of confidence. I had promised you guys that we will show positive year-on-year growth on the corporate bank in the second half of the year.

We managed to do that by a little bit in the second quarter, but when I look at my forward outlook, I have zero pause that we're going to exit this year out with a very healthy growth rate. And the fact that the betas are also holding up, by the way, just so you know, on deposits, we have a slightly higher beta on euro deposits. Despite the competition, we have much better betas on U. S. and other currencies.

And in addition, despite Germany not being full speed, we grew our German lending book by 3% this quarter. So all the indicators for the corporate bank give me great confidence that we will show you all what we promise, which is good growth rate. As you know, the ROT is still pretty solid for the corporate bank. It has not been impacted, so we think we have some ways to get it in there. But all in all, the story for the corporate bank is playing out, I would say, exactly how we had crafted this plan.

And I think the only way for us to prove that would be to go through one or two more quarters when you start seeing the 1% growth turn into 5% growth and 5% turn into 8%. But I'm honestly super not fussed about what's happening with corporate brand because with the interest rate tailwinds, with the German fiscal, and the fact that we are actually seeing loan growth after a long time, and that too in trade finance, which is where all the good stuff happens, the fees come associated with that, the payments businesses come with that. I feel pretty good about it where we are.

As I said in my prepared remarks, the majority of the benefit comes into 27 and 28 because of the way our hedges are set up. We don't leave ourselves super exposed in the short end. So we obviously have benefit, but the real improvement is actually coming from 5% to 6% fee and commission growth and the increase in the deposit balances that you were seeing and the fact that the betas are holding up pretty well. So the growth of the corporate bank is not super dependent on this interest rate position, but is actually super helped by it, because what's happening is that now we are able to reset these hedges, and the 27 and 28 impacts are going to be much more pronounced than the 26 impact.

Julia, let me just take the second question first. It's only my second quarter here, but I would like to reassure you that we feel very comfortable with our expense guidance. We have planned the year very meticulously. We communicated what we wanted to invest in quite up front, so there will be never any surprises. And based on where we are at today, I see no reason, based on what management knows, that why we would not hit close to where everybody has us. Obviously, it's a $21 billion expense space. Could I be $50 million one way or the other? Yes. But for the most part, I am feeling comfortable that we will not exceed what we have guided because we have clear benefits from productivity showing up along with the pacing that we have.

So I would like to just reassure everyone on that one. Look, on SRTs, I'll take you back to the investor day, and we had said what our ambitions were. That is just one tool in our belt related to capital optimization. We don't want to be over-reliant on any one thing. And in fact, we don't want to be over-reliant on any one product or platform in the SRTs. Therefore, we are building new platforms and diversifying against counterparties. We, in this particular quarter, we executed one of the programs. We have some lined up. But at this point, unless we really see a need, we don't think we really have a dependency to massively scale the SRTs. We have much better ways to free up capital, taking portfolio actions where we don't give up economics, things like we've done in India, exiting non-performing exposures, which free up capital.

So I think at this point, we are pretty comfortable with the goal that we had for using SRTs as we laid out the investor day. And at the moment, our ratio benefit is around 75 to 80 basis points. I think we think it's reasonable.

Sure. Let me start. Looking at the share buyback, as I mentioned, we are in the brand new cadence where we are distributing the first half of profits with the second quarter results. So I think it would be reasonable to assume that we will – assuming everything else goes according to plan, obviously we have all the regulatory approvals that we need, that we would aim to do that again in the second half of the year to distribute the first half profit. So I think that's a fair assumption. In terms of FICC, I would say, you know, in some ways, it's very reassuring that we have kind of proven the naysayers a little bit wrong that said that it will be hard for a European bank or fake franchise to compete with the U. S. banks, given the relief that they're getting.

The performance in FICC is very broad-based. We did extremely well, both on rates and on credit. On rates, I think it's clear the volatility with trend is good for markets, and it tends to be conducive to high level of activity, and we clearly were rightly placed there. Especially our strength in euro rates, where we are super competitive, was a differentiating factor for us. On credit, it was both the story of flows, where we had emerging market macro business that actually performed very strongly, as well as distressed products, where maybe there were a few more idiosyncratic events that played in our favor. So all in all, I think the FIC business performed exceptionally well. I think, as Christian said, we believe based on this performance, we probably took share.

We did not really massively deploy RWAs for this performance. It was really market-based performance. As far as the last day of the quarter, you will notice on the chart, it's always a little bit spiked. There's accounting adjustments, there's day one P&L, there's reserves. So it's nothing unusual. It's not even one of the higher spikes. So there's not much to read on the last day of the year. I'm sure I can ask for a question that it's hard to quantify anything at this point in terms of benefits for the future reforms or pension reforms. I think it's a little too premature to do that.

Yeah, so I think Roger is right. Sorry, and putting a number to it is wrong, but I would say, I mean, looking at the depth of the pension reform, how it has been announced, and again, subject to execution because it needs to go through Parliament now. I would not be surprised if we see so to say an overshoot of our assets under management goals for the private bank and asset management compared to that what we have given to the market in November 25 because we can already see what happened in the first six months with that what was decided I very optimistic that we can have a refinement of that number going forward But first let really have that approved in the German parliament what has been announced We now have a question from the line of Nicolas Paglien from Kepler-Chevreux.

It's a good question, actually, because I'm quite pleased with the progress on all four ones. But, you know, I always like to choose that what is in our hands because we can control it like we have controlled the last seven or eight years. And to be honest, what I have seen in, you know, our own application of AI, the productivity gains also Roger was talking about, But that gives me all the confidence that, you know, with the investments we are doing, we will achieve more in the next three years than we indicated. And again, it's in our management responsibility and in our day-to-day discipline of executing. And therefore, obviously, this is something which is, sort of say, closest to our own steering.

You know, I talked a lot about Germany and the reforms, but to be honest, I'm actually really positively surprised about the competitiveness report by the European Union last week, because it's pretty broad. We are not only talking, so to say, one item, i. e. CRR3. We are also talking capital buffers. We are actually discussing other items we brought in, like software amortization. And therefore, if this is now executed in the spirit of how it has been written, I really do believe that we get a better balance between the needed stability, but also to position banks into, you know, supporting the growth of the economy. And therefore, I'm really pleased with that. And I think it will in particular help a bank like Deutsche Bank a lot.

And therefore, I would pick that one in particular.

Thanks. Let me take the question on investment bank. We did obviously see some opportunity to deploy, leverage this quarter a little bit, and then you can see the results of that, the performance and the returns were fantastic. Going forward, look, the way I think about capital deployment for IB, and obviously we have not set any hard or fast ceilings for that one, but the way I think about it is that we need a world-class investment bank that's wrapped around with very stable fee capital-like businesses. And if we are growing our fee and capital-like businesses disproportionately higher, obviously the proportion of capital that's allocated to investment bank may optically appear to be more, but that's by design.

So while we don't have a cap, we do want to continue to shift the mix towards where majority of our revenue and our PBT continues to come from stable fee-based businesses. And by the way, this is another quarter where 60% of the revenue comes from non-IB businesses. On the PBT side, it's a little bit less, but if you were to adjust for the sale of India and the investments in the corporate and private bank, we actually also have made the pivot now where over 60% of the PBT could thread. I do think that we have the capital, but the question that I pose to the business is really, do we have the returns that go with that capital?

Because we are not in a situation where we have desperation to just deploy capital to get to where we need to get to. We have our other businesses growing in a pretty healthy way. So at this point, if we can take market share and we can get the returns, sure, we'll deploy a little bit, but we have more than enough capital. And I said in the medium term, I don't see a large amount of RWA growth for us to sustain what we want to do for the investment bank. So I feel pretty good about the size. But what's more important for us is that the businesses around Investment Bank are now growing with the pace that we had envisioned at the IDD.

And frankly speaking, as Christian said, on the asset flow side, we are hitting the ball out of the park. If you were to look at the average growth rate we had assumed to hit our $1 trillion of client assets for PV, we are way in excess of that. And Stefan will not like it when I give him his 27 number, but I think his 160 billion of AUM is beginning to look a little bit of a shy number.

Thanks, Stephan. Stephan, I think it's not as you noticed that we have historically, if you compare to our historical VAR, I think we had shown a chart in the investor day, the company is running a much tighter band. The volatility is actually much lower than what it used to be. As I mentioned in the previous question, it is not unusual for banks like us to actually have a final day of the month impact because we do assess reserves and day one P&L at the end of the month. So when it's in the big scheme of things, it's not game changing. So there's no real reason for it to be off. I think it's just a matter of how we close the books and how everybody does it, frankly speaking.

I think CloudChart would not seem that much dissimilar from most banks who are in a trading kind of an environment. So I would just say that that's kind of what this quarter is a little bit more pronounced, but it's not even, I went back in history, it's not even the highest one that we had. So it's actually within the range of reasonableness. Look, the other thing is I don't believe that we have gone out and given a full breakdown of our data center exposure, but it's high single digits, and it's within our appetite.

And more importantly, our exposure is to large sponsors who have a diversified business model and a revenue stream. We don't generally tend to lend to small sponsors or companies whose only business is AI or only business is a certain type of technology. That makes us comfortable. There will be a small portion of that also within the private credit exposure, but it's obviously our private credit, and that's by design because our private credit portfolio is extremely well diversified between mid-market companies, both in Europe and in the U. S. , so there's not a direct one-to-one overlap. And just to communicate, both the data center exposures and the private center credit exposures, for the most part, have remained pretty stable in size.

And that's by design, because we have risk tolerances for types of borrowers and types of industries. So that's kind of the way we look at that.

But there's very little data center in private credit.

Thank you very much, Raja.

Sure. Let me ask the first question because it's a super easy one. Of course, we do any announcements regarding capital return with full permission from our supervisors, and we have to get them comfortable with our status and our projections. So any future share buyback would be their acceptance. I will not comment on the process. I think that's something that should stay between us and our supervisor in terms of, but as you know, So we essentially are changing our process, and we give share buyback this time around in the current year earnings. So certainly we've been able to do it a little bit quicker this time around.

Look, in the end-of-the-day loan book in IB is pretty broad-based. We had a little bit of asset-backed lending growth, and also obviously in our IBCM franchise, we are supporting clients in their transactions. So it's not necessarily any focus areas. On fixed financing, we clearly are seeing an ability to deploy some loans because the spreads have not come down as much as we thought they would when we made our initial plan. So the returns are pretty attractive. So the growth, I would say, is broad-based. It's hard for me to pinpoint any one thing other than it's not private credit.

Yeah, thank you for the question. Let me answer the fake financing question first. So when we did our investor day back in November, we had made a certain assumption about how fast the spreads could potentially be coming down between 25 and 28, and that's what was the basis of our plan. And that was quite a, I would say, we had a pretty conservative assumption in terms of spreads. What we have seen is the spreads have come down, but nearly not as much as what we had modeled. So therefore, it gives us an opportunity to deploy some capital and still make attractive returns. And what has happened is that the refinancing rate is slightly higher, but the rollover of the current portfolio is now actually happening at higher spreads than what we had envisioned.

So in some ways, we are benefiting from the deviation between what our original assumption was versus what is actually happening. And that's what's given us the opportunity to potentially do more, a little bit more than what we had assumed at the previous spread level. So that's kind of the reality over there, and obviously the ability to deploy these loans across different businesses is also something that we like. Look, as I mentioned, the real uplift of the NII is going to be in 27 and 28, given our hedge strategy. But we do find a little bit of that improvement in 2026, which is why we're indicating that we believe that NII guidance for 2026 should be slightly higher, and that should fall to the bottom line.

As Christian mentioned, all the other businesses are actually performing quite well as well. Well, the unknown is a little bit on the CNO. We have outperformed our CNO guidance in the first half of the year by a little bit. And at this point, from a planning perspective, we assume that some of that will revert back or is beginning to revert back. So therefore, we are going towards our guidance for the second half of the year for CNO, kind of offsetting that upside. Now, the reality is that where I sit today, I think if you were to look at the range of outcomes around 33, because 33, remember, is an approximate 33. If I was to look at the range of outcomes above that 33, at the very minimum, we should be above the midpoint of that range and not at the low point of that range.

And that's how I would think about the upside that we have with the performance of the second half, the first half, we have now comfortably up to 33. And depending on how CNO evolves, I think we could potentially be comfortably above 33. And that's kind of where our guidance is at this point. And on your last question on loan growth, I think we have approximately a billion or so of SVA actions in our low sub hurdle lending book in the private bank as well. We haven't really called it out because the loan growth, even despite that, is pretty healthy. But that trajectory will continue to see, reducing that book and replacing that with the trade finance book, which is much more SVA positive.

Yeah, look, assets under custody is a little bit episodic in some cases when large transactions happen, whether it's IPOs or other strategic transactions. And in certain cases, the money comes in and stays, and as other cases, it flows out. Obviously, our goal is to build this business because it is actually directly in line with our strategy, which is to bring very low cost, high margin, even if low spread business. But because it gives us visibility into the client's assets being held away from us in wealth management, and then it gives us an avenue to actually go to the client and talk to them about moving their assets that are under custody to assets under management.

So it's not a high basis point business, but it's extremely accretive given we have the platform to do that, and we have basically started working on that really in earnest post-investor day. The focus has been, I think the average margin, the fees or margin is around mid-single digits, but it's very accretive mid-single digits. And the reason we do that business is because it's a pipeline to assets under management from assets under custody.

Sorry, you had one more question for me about DTA. Look, I think the DTA dynamic works on where our earnings are being generated and which jurisdiction the DTA is. And clearly, it is our goal as we generate more and more revenues across the platform that we would like to see continued utilization of the DTA. But it really kind of depends on the earning mix in the jurisdiction in that particular quarter and how much we can utilize. So at this point, we haven't really planned for massive DTA-related benefits, but clearly what we're seeing is because the earnings power of the company is increasing versus historical consumption of DTA, we're seeing more DTA utilization, hence more benefit.

Let me answer the second question first, because that will bring a smile to my boss's face as well. It's absolutely something that we are very focused on. I think AI has given us a tremendous opportunity to look at our processes that are not even AI dependent, because what we're seeing is when you go in and you look at deploying AI in a particular process end-to-end, you find ways to simplify the process itself. So that's something that we are actively looking at, and I think my conviction level goes higher every time as time passes, and I think that's what gives us a lot of confidence that Christian is talking about, that I think we will be doing much better in 2028, at least on that front, because that is in our control versus what we have.

Clearly, there's opportunities that are not just AI-driven, but opportunities for identifying simplification that are coming up because we are going in to deploy things in areas which have been BAU for a while.

Jeremy, on your first question on the business strategy in the IB, no, it does not really change. I think we have a clear strategy laid out in November 25. We knew that we wanted to, so to say, adjust a bit, in particular in IBCM, our strategy, and I'm very happy with the direction Alison and Fabrizio are going. You see the results in Q2, and I see this is only one reflection. We see that momentum continuing. Now, it's also really good for us, obviously, that we had the one or the other mandate in big IPOs, global IPOs, U. S. IPOs, because it gives us actually the attention also here in Europe. And, you know, with all that, what is now decided and has been announced in Germany, I do think that activity is also coming back here in Europe.

I can see actually that investors are still looking very interested at Europe. If I just see the investor response to the publication and announcement in Germany over the last four weeks, it was very positive. And, you know, they would like to have a bank which they can use as a gateway to Europe and a bank with a global network. And this is exactly how we prepared for that. In this regard, you know, it simply only supports my view on the IBE business. We need to stay disciplined, but I think we can actually take a lot of benefits of these developments.

Thank you very much, and thank you for joining us today and for your questions. For any follow-ups, please come through to the Investor Relations team, and we look forward to speaking to you on our third quarter call. Bye-bye.