Status: 15.09.2021 4:58 p.m.
The back of chairs at the second largest German money house continues. Commerzbank appoints two new bosses for the private customer business and the IT department. The institute is in the middle of a major renovation, to which many jobs are falling victim.
The personnel turmoil at the top of Commerzbank continues: After there were already a few changes in the top management of Frankfurter Bank, two new bosses are coming from outside. Thomas Schaufler, who is currently working at the Austrian bank Erste Group, is to become the new head of private customers. Jörg Oliveri del Castillo-Schulz, who previously worked in the consulting industry, will succeed the previous IT director Jörg Hessenmüller. This was announced by Commerzbank after a Supervisory Board meeting and thus confirmed corresponding media reports.
Major project stopped
The previous IT director at Hessenmüller came under pressure in connection with a major project that has now been stopped. At the beginning of 2019 he was promoted to the board of Commerzbank, his contract was only extended by five years in June.
In July, Commerzbank pulled the plug when it outsourced securities processing to a subsidiary of the major bank HSBC, for which the 51-year-old was responsible. Depreciation of around 200 million euros was the result. This is one of the reasons why the institute posted a loss of half a million euros in the second quarter. The new head of the group, Manfred Knof, has taken on the task of bringing the bank back into the profit zone on a sustainable basis.
Sabine Schmittroth, Head of Human Resources, had recently taken care of the retail customer area on a temporary basis. In June, Commerzbank decided that the 56-year-old should focus again on HR issues – and started the search for a private customer boss.
The bank manager Schaufler is already board member responsible for private customer business at Erste Group. The Austrian institute had appointed him to do this until December 2023.
Hundreds of branches are closed
Commerzbank is currently in the middle of restructuring and is cutting around 10,000 jobs across the group. Every third job in Germany is affected. The money house also plans to close 240 branches by the end of the year. By the end of 2022, the network in Germany is to be almost halved from currently 790 to 450 locations.
In the first quarter, Commerzbank had already set aside 465 million euros for severance payments to more than 10,000 employees who were no longer needed. In total, the cost of restructuring the group since the beginning of the year has thus come to 976 million euros.
But restructuring is not the only challenge for Commerzbank boss Knof. Because at the end of April the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled that banks must obtain the consent of their customers in the event of changes to general terms and conditions (Az .: XI ZR 26/20). Many bank customers can now claim back part of fees that have been paid too much. The consequences: multi-million dollar costs for the institutes.