Earnings call transcript: Deutsche Bank Q3 2025 beats expectations, stock dips

Deutsche Bank reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, surpassing analysts’ expectations with an EPS of €0.86, compared to the forecast of €0.71, a 21.62% surprise. Revenue also exceeded projections, reaching €8.04 billion against the anticipated €7.8 billion. Despite these positive results, the stock price fell 0.53% in pre-market trading, reflecting a nuanced investor sentiment. This comes amid an impressive 105% stock return over the past year, according to InvestingPro data.

Key Takeaways

• Deutsche Bank’s EPS and revenue both exceeded forecasts significantly.
• The stock price dipped 0.53% despite the earnings beat.
• The bank is on track to meet its full-year revenue target of €32 billion.
• Operational efficiencies and digital transformation are key growth drivers.

Company Performance

Deutsche Bank demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, with a significant year-over-year increase in pre-provision profit, which rose nearly 50% to €9 billion. The bank’s strategic focus on digital transformation and operational efficiencies appears to be paying off, as evidenced by a 7% growth in nine-month revenues. The cost-to-income ratio stood at 63%, reflecting improved operational management.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €24.4 billion, tracking toward a full-year goal of €32 billion.
• Earnings per share: €0.86, a 21.62% surprise over the forecast.
• Pre-provision profit: €9 billion, up nearly 50% year-on-year.
• Post-tax return on tangible equity: 10.9%.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Deutsche Bank’s Q3 2025 earnings per share of €0.86 significantly beat the forecasted €0.71, marking a 21.62% surprise. Revenue also surpassed expectations, reaching €8.04 billion against a forecast of €7.8 billion. This performance highlights the bank’s effective cost management and strategic initiatives.

Market Reaction

Despite the earnings beat, Deutsche Bank’s stock price fell by 0.53% in pre-market trading. This decline might be attributed to broader market trends or investor caution regarding future economic conditions. The stock remains near its 52-week high of €32.21, indicating strong overall performance. According to InvestingPro data, Deutsche Bank appears slightly overvalued based on its Fair Value assessment, which may explain some investor hesitation despite strong fundamentals.

Outlook & Guidance

Deutsche Bank remains optimistic about meeting its full-year 2025 goals, with expectations of lower provisioning levels in the second half of the year. The bank has committed to capital distributions exceeding €8 billion between 2022 and 2026. An investor deep dive is scheduled for November 17, 2025, in London, where further strategic insights are anticipated.

Executive Commentary

CEO Christian Sewing emphasized the success of Deutsche Bank’s global house bank strategy, stating, "We are fully focused on delivering on our 2025 targets." CFO James von Moltke added, "We feel we’re in a strong position to generate excess capital," underscoring the bank’s financial health and strategic positioning.

Risks and Challenges

• Macroeconomic pressures: Potential impacts from global economic fluctuations could affect performance.
• Regulatory changes: New financial regulations in Europe may pose challenges.
• Market competition: Increased competition in digital banking could impact market share.
• Credit market volatility: Fluctuations in credit markets may affect provisioning levels.
• Geopolitical tensions: Ongoing geopolitical issues may influence investor sentiment.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Deutsche Bank’s confidence in achieving Q4 targets and potential opportunities in private credit. The bank expressed cautious optimism about the commercial real estate market’s stabilization and highlighted its focus on asset gathering in private banking. With a return on equity of 7% and net income expected to grow this year according to InvestingPro analysis, Deutsche Bank’s financial trajectory appears positive. Investors seeking comprehensive analysis can access the Pro Research Report for Deutsche Bank, part of the 1,400+ detailed company reports available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers.

Full transcript - Deutsche Bank (DBK) Q3 2025:

Moritz, Call Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q3 2025 Analyst Conference call. I’m Moritz, the call’s operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it’s my pleasure to hand over to Ioana Patriniche, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Ioana Patriniche, Head of Investor Relations, Deutsche Bank: Thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2025 results call. As usual, our Chief Executive Officer, Christian Sewing, will speak first, followed by our Chief Financial Officer, James von Moltke. The presentation, as always, is available to download in the Investor Relations section of our website, db.com. Before we get started, let me just remind you that the presentation contains forward-looking statements, which may not develop as we currently expect. We therefore ask you to take notice of the precautionary warning at the end of our materials. With that, let me hand over to Christian.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: Thank you, Ioana, and good morning from me. As you will have seen, we delivered record profitability in the first nine months of 2025. We are tracking in line with our full-year 2025 goals on all dimensions. Nine months’ revenues at €24.4 billion are fully in line with our full-year goal of around €32 billion before FX effects. Adjusted costs at €15.2 billion are consistent with our guidance. Post-tax return on tangible equity is 10.9%, meeting our full-year target of above 10%. Our cost-to-income ratio at 63% is also consistent with our target of below 65%. Profitability is significantly stronger than in the same period of 2024, even if adjusting for the post-bank litigation provision, which impacted last year’s result. Through organic capital generation, our CET1 ratio rose to 14.5% in the quarter.

This reflects our latest share buyback program, which we completed this month, and a significant proportion of next year’s distributions. Asset quality remains solid, provisions were in line with expectations, and we had no exposure to recent high-profile cases. In short, we are fully focused on delivering on our 2025 targets. Let me now turn to the operating leverage which drove our profit growth on slide three. Pre-provision profit was €9 billion in the first nine months of 2025, up nearly 50% year on year or nearly 30% if adjusted for the post-bank litigation impacts in both periods. Similarly, adjusted for the post-bank litigation impacts, operating leverage was 9% and profit before tax was up 36%. We saw continued revenue growth of 7%, with momentum across the businesses.

Net commission and fee income was up 5% year on year, while NII across key banking book segments and other funding was essentially stable. 74% of revenues came from more predictable revenue streams: the corporate bank, private bank, asset management, and the financing business in FIC. Cost discipline remained strong. Non-interest expenses were down 8% year on year, with significantly lower non-operating costs, largely due to the non-repeat of post-bank litigation provisions, while adjusted costs were flat. Let me now turn to our progress on the pillars of strategy execution on slide four. We are on track to meet or exceed all our 2025 strategic goals. Compound annual revenue growth since 2021 was 6%, in the middle of our range of between 5.5% and 6.5%. In a changing environment, we are benefiting from a well-diversified earnings mix. Operational efficiencies stood at €2.4 billion, either delivered or expected from measures completed.

In other words, 95% of our €2.5 billion goal. Capital efficiencies have already reached €30 billion in RWA reductions, the high end of our target range, and we see scope for further efficiency through year-end. During the quarter, we launched our second share buyback program of 2025, with a value of €250 million, which we completed last week. This takes total share buybacks in 2025 to €1 billion. Together with our 2024 dividend paid in May this year, total capital distributions in 2025 reached €2.3 billion, up around 50% over 2024. This brings cumulative distributions since 2022 to €5.6 billion. Finally, a word on our business on slide five. We are delivering strengths and strategic execution across all four businesses in our global house bank in 2025. All four businesses have delivered double-digit profit growth and double-digit ROTE in the first nine months.

Corporate Bank continues to scale further the global house bank model and delivered strong fee growth of 5% in the first nine months, while recognized as the best trade finance bank. Our investment bank has been there for clients through challenging times this year and has seen an increase in activity across the whole client spectrum: institutional, corporate, and priority groups. Private Bank has made tremendous progress with its transformation so far this year, with nine months’ profits up 71%. Our growth strategy in wealth management is paying off. Assets under management have grown by €40 billion year to date, with net inflows of €25 billion. In asset management, the combination of fee-based expansion with operational efficiency drives sustainable returns of 25%. We are benefiting from our strengths in European ETFs and expanding our offering in that area.

To sum up our performance in 2025 to date, we have delivered record profitability due to continued revenue momentum and cost discipline. Our nine months’ performance is in line with our full-year financial goals on all dimensions. We are on track to reach or exceed our strategy execution targets. We have demonstrated strengths across all four of our businesses. Our capital position is strong and supports our aim of distributions to shareholders in excess of €8 billion payable between 2022 and 2026. Before I hand over to James, I want to briefly address our future. We have built very strong foundations for the next phase of our strategic agenda. With our positioning in the strongest European economy, we stand to benefit from powerful tailwinds coming from German fiscal stimulus, structural reforms, and renewed client confidence.

We look forward to discussing this with you at our investor deep dive in London in November.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Thank you, Christian, and good morning. As you can see on slide seven, we saw continued strong delivery this quarter against all the broader objectives and targets we set ourselves for 2025. Our revenue growth, cost-to-income ratio, and return on tangible equity are all developing in line with our full-year objectives. Our capital position is strong and our liquidity metrics are sound. The liquidity coverage ratio finished the quarter at 140% and the net stable funding ratio was 119%. With that, let me now turn to the third quarter highlights on slide eight. Our diversified and complementary business mix resulted in reported revenue growth of 7% year on year, or 10% if adjusted for foreign exchange translation impacts.

Due to the non-recurrence of a provision release related to the post-bank takeover litigation matter from which we benefited last year, third-quarter non-operating costs and non-interest expenses were both higher year on year. The tax rate of 26% in the third quarter benefited from the reduction of deferred tax liabilities due to the change in the German corporate tax rate, which will start to decline after 2027. We continue to expect the 2025 full-year tax rate to range between 28% and 29%. In the third quarter, diluted earnings per share was $0.89 and tangible book value per share increased 3% year on year to €30.17. Before I go on, a few remarks on Corporate and Other, with further information in the appendix on slide 36.

C&O generated a pre-tax loss of €110 million in the quarter, mainly driven by shareholder expenses and other centrally held items, partially offset by positive revenues in valuation and timing differences. Let me now turn to some of the drivers of these results, starting with net interest income on slide nine. NII across key banking book segments and other funding was €3.3 billion. Private Bank continued to deliver steady NII growth, supported by the ongoing rollover of our structural hedge portfolio and deposit inflows. Corporate Bank NII was slightly down quarter on quarter, reflecting lower one-offs, while it continues to be supported by underlying portfolio growth as well as hedge rollover. With respect to the full year, we continue to benefit from the long-term hedge portfolio rollover detailed on slide 24 of the appendix and are on track to meet our plans on a currency-adjusted basis.

Turning to slide 10, adjusted costs were €5 billion for the quarter. Cost discipline across the franchise remains strong. Compensation costs were up on a year-on-year basis, primarily reflecting the higher performance-related accruals, higher deferred equity compensation, and the impact of increasing Deutsche Bank and DWS share prices. With that, let me turn to provision for credit losses on slide 11. Stage three provision for credit losses increased in the quarter to €357 million as provisions for commercial real estate continued to be elevated, while the prior quarter included model-related benefits. Stage one and two provisions reduced to €60 million and were driven by further model updates, which, as in the prior quarter, mainly impacted CRE-related provisions. Wider portfolio performance and asset quality remain resilient.

While the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment continues to create uncertainty, we continue to expect lower provisioning levels in the second half of the year relative to the first half year, primarily due to the expected absence of additional notable model effects impacting stage one and two. We are actively monitoring and managing risks from private credit, which, as outlined on slide 28, accounts for about 5% of our loan book. Our private credit exposure predominantly reflects lender finance facilities extended to high-quality financial sponsors backed by diversified pools of loans. These facilities are overwhelmingly investment-grade rated internally and are underwritten and maintained with conservative LTVs. We apply conservative underwriting standards, including our assessment of sponsor and investor quality, loan sizes, and structural features. We are comfortable with our portfolio and, as Christian Sewing said, we had no exposure to recent high-profile cases.

As you might expect, we remain vigilant and have undertaken additional portfolio reviews in light of these events. With that, let me turn to capital on slide 12. Strong third-quarter earnings, net of AT1 coupon and dividend deductions, led to an increase in the CET1 ratio to 14.5%, up 26 basis points sequentially. RWA were flat during the quarter. As we head into the fourth quarter, let me remind you of the 27 basis point CET1 benefit we still have from the adoption of the Article 468 CRR transitional rule for unrealized gains and losses, which will expire at the end of the year.

Also, following revised EBA guidance from June 2025 regarding the calculation of operational risk RWA under the new standardized approach, we must now perform the annual update of operational risk RWA already by the end of 2025, which is expected to lead to a 19 basis point drawdown in CET1 ratio terms. All else equal, therefore, these two items applied to the third quarter would lead to a pro forma CET1 ratio of approximately 14%, which is also roughly where we currently expect to finish the year. Our third-quarter leverage ratio was 4.6%, down 11 basis points, principally from higher loans and commitments alongside increased settlement activity at quarter end. Tier one capital was essentially flat in the quarter as the derecognition of the $1.25 billion AT1 instrument that we called in September materially offset the quarter-on-quarter increase in CET1 capital.

Let us now turn to performance in our businesses, starting with the corporate bank on slide 14. In the third quarter, corporate bank achieved a strong post-tax return on tangible equity of 16.2% and a cost-to-income ratio of 63%, maintaining its high profitability. Both metrics showed a year-on-year improvement for the quarter as well as for the first nine months of 2025. As anticipated in the previous quarter, corporate bank revenues remained essentially flat compared to the prior year quarter, demonstrating resilience in a challenging environment. Margin normalization and FX headwinds were offset by interest hedging, higher average deposits, and 4% growth in net commission and fee income, driven by continued expansion in corporate treasury services. On a sequential basis, revenues were slightly lower as the prior quarter benefited from one-off interest hedging gains and seasonally stronger net commission and fee income.

Loans and deposits remained essentially flat on a reported basis. Adjusted for foreign exchange movements, loan volumes increased by €5 billion year on year, driven by growth in the trade finance business and by €1 billion sequentially. Deposit volumes remained strong, with underlying growth both year on year and sequentially, offsetting the runoff of concentrated client balances. Non-interest expenses and adjusted costs were essentially flat as effective cost management mitigated the impact of inflation and investments in client service. A release of provision for credit losses, reflecting a release of stage one and two and a low level of stage three provisions, demonstrates the continued resilience of the loan book. I’ll now turn to the investment bank on slide 15. Revenues for the third quarter increased 18% year on year, with continued strength in FIC, supported by a material improvement in O&A.

FIC revenues increased 19%, driven by strong performance across businesses. Macro products and credit trading demonstrated material year-on-year improvements following strong market activity through the quarter, while financing continued its momentum with revenues again higher than the prior year period, driven by an increased carry profile, reflecting targeted balance sheet deployment. Moving to O&A, revenues were significantly higher both year on year and sequentially, increasing 27% and 22% respectively. Debt origination was the biggest driver as both leveraged and investment-grade debt grew revenues year on year, with the leveraged finance market particularly active, having recovered well since the second quarter. Equity origination revenues increased 57%, driven by strong issuance activity, including an improved IPO market. Advisory revenues were essentially flat year on year as the industry fee pool moved away from our areas of strength. However, pipeline for the fourth quarter is encouraging.

Non-interest expenses were higher year on year, primarily driven by the impact of higher deferred compensation and increased litigation charges. Provision for credit losses was €308 million, significantly higher year on year, with stage one and two provisions materially impacted by further model updates during the quarter and stage three impairments. Let me now turn to private bank on slide 16. The private bank continued its disciplined strategy execution and delivered a strong quarterly performance. Profit before tax doubled, reflecting 13% operating leverage in the quarter. Return on tangible equity rose to 12.6%, showing robust growth both sequentially and year on year. Revenues increased, driven by a 9% rise in net interest income from deposits and lending, while net commission and fee income was essentially flat year on year.

Growth in discretionary portfolio mandates, specifically in Germany, was partially offset by lower net commission and fee income from cards, payments, and postal services this quarter. Growth in personal banking was mainly driven by higher investment and deposit revenues. Lending revenues were up slightly, helped by the absence of an episodic item in the prior year. The continued expansion in wealth management and private banking was supported by solid momentum in discretionary portfolio mandates. Sustained cost efficiency, underpinned by transformation benefits, led to a 9% improvement in the cost-to-income ratio to 68%. Personal banking continued its transformation with 24 additional branch closures in the quarter, bringing the total to 109 this year. These actions contributed to workforce reductions of 1,000 in the first nine months, demonstrating continued strategy execution. Business momentum remains strong, with significant net inflows of €13 billion, supported by successful deposit campaigns.

Underlying credit trends showed improvements, with provision for credit losses benefiting from model updates. Turning to slide 17, my usual reminder, the asset management segment includes certain items that are not part of the DWS standalone financials. Profit before tax improved significantly by 42% from the prior year period, driven by higher revenues and resulting in an increase in return on tangible equity of 9% to 28% for this quarter. Revenues increased by 11% versus the prior year. Growth in average assets under management, both from markets and net inflows, resulted in higher management fees of €655 million. In addition, performance fees saw a significant increase from the prior year period, primarily due to the recognition of fees from an infrastructure fund. Non-interest expenses and adjusted costs were essentially flat, resulting in a decline in the cost-to-income ratio to below 60% for the quarter.

Quarterly net inflows totaled €12 billion, with €10 billion into passive products, including X trackers, which also recorded its best day ever this quarter in terms of net new assets. SQI, advisory services, and cash contributed a further €3 billion of net inflows, which more than offset €2 billion in net outflows for multi-asset and active equity products. Assets under management increased to €1.05 trillion in the quarter, driven by positive market impact and the aforementioned net inflows. During the quarter, DWS received the necessary licenses to open a new office in Abu Dhabi, strengthening its regional presence and client engagement in the Middle East, reinforcing its position as the preferred gateway to Europe for global investors. For further details, please have a look at DWS’s disclosure on their Investor Relations website.

Turning to the outlook on slide 18, we are on track to meet our full-year 2025 targets and remain confident in our trajectory to deliver a return on tangible equity of above 10% and a cost-to-income ratio of below 65%. Our year-to-date performance supports our revenue and expense objectives. Our asset quality remains solid and, despite uncertainty from developments around commercial real estate as well as the macroeconomic environment, we continue to anticipate lower provisioning levels in the second half. Our strong capital position and third-quarter profit growth provide a solid foundation as we head into 2026. We also completed our second buyback, taking total buybacks in 2025 to €1 billion, and we reiterate our commitment to outperforming our €8 billion distribution target.

We look forward to providing you with an update on our forward-looking strategy and financial trajectory at our next investor deep dive on November 17, 2025 in London. With that, let me hand back to Ioana, and we look forward to your questions.

Ioana Patriniche, Head of Investor Relations, Deutsche Bank: Thank you, James. Officers, we are now ready to take questions.

Moritz, Call Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Tariq Al-Mejat from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Two from my side, please. First, I mean, you printed a strong Q3 results, which put you well on track to deliver on your 2025 targets, being revenues, cost, ROT, or capital. Can you run us through your thoughts on achieving your 2025 targets and whether, more importantly, Q4 would see a similar or better trend than Q3, or on the flip side, we should expect some or could be some negative surprises? I’m always asking this because it’s very important and it sets the tone for the trajectory and credibility of your medium-term targets to be released in three weeks’ time. The second question, longer term, can you please discuss how a bank like yours would benefit from the German fiscal stimulus? I mean, how important is it as a lever, lever, sorry, to your medium-term profitability?

Maybe you can take an opportunity to update us on how the implementation of fiscal stimulus is going and the merits of it. Thank you.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Tariq. Thank you for your question. Let me start on both questions. First of all, we agree with you. It’s unbelievably important that we achieve our targets for 2025 to further build up the credibility. To be honest, we are highly confident in doing so. First of all, let me reiterate again also what James said at the end of his comments. A, we are really happy with the first nine months’ performance. I think it really shows our strengths. It also actually shows the continuous improvement, the momentum, the validity of the strategy, and in particular in the times where we are with these geopolitical uncertainties, this concept of the global house bank is actually gathering more and more momentum and clients want our advice, be it private clients, corporate clients, institutional clients.

Therefore, to be honest, I’m really confident that we see this momentum also going into Q4. On the revenue side, look, we had a robust, actually, I would say a very good start in October on the investment banking side. We have a good visibility when it comes to the pipeline on the O&A side for Q4. The predictable or more predictable businesses are looking very solid for the fourth quarter, in particular private bank and asset management. On the asset management side, look, it’s not yet over the year, but I can actually, I would expect higher performance fees even coming in. There is even some upside to the already quite positive outlook.

From a revenue point of view, while Q4 is always seasonally a bit weaker than the others, it’s actually in line with our plan, even potentially higher than the plan, and that makes me absolutely confident that we can achieve the $32 billion. I think we know how to manage costs. We have shown that quarter by quarter, the same discipline will be applied to the cost line in Q4. Therefore, I think simply from an operating performance, I’m confident that we show another good quarter. From a risk point of view, look, we are there. What we told you at the end of Q2 that the second half of 2025 will show lower provisions than the first half. We have started to see that in Q3. From a credit portfolio point of view, I’m confident, I feel comfortable.

We haven’t been involved in those cases which were quite heavy in the media. It shows actually the underwriting criteria we have, the discipline we have, and therefore, I’m confident there. That shows me overall, while there is always, obviously, some seasonal issues, looking actually at Q4, it all adds to my high confidence that we will meet and potentially even exceed our targets when it comes to return on equity, the cost-to-income ratio, and also, as important, actually, our target to shareholder distributions well above $1 billion. I think we also have actually a very, very good capital story, and I’m sure James will talk about that. With regard to Germany and how we built this into our plan, I don’t want to be defensive when I refer to our IDD in two and a half weeks’ time because obviously we will talk about that far more in detail.

Also, as an answer to your question, look, first of all, I have not changed my view on Germany and the stimulus program and what Germany will do, so to say, over the next two to three years. The government is clearly reiterating that growth and competitiveness is at the core of their agenda. While there is noise about the speed of implementation, which I understand, we all wish even for a speedier implementation, we should also actually think about what has been done next to the, so to say, adjustment of the debt brake. There are very concrete discussions between the government and other institutions, including ours, how to deploy now the $500 billion, be it on infrastructure or on defense. We have seen other reforms on the tech side, the investment booster, initial changes to social and pension reforms.

When we discuss with the government, there is clearly more to come. Therefore, we are very optimistic that Germany is able to grow by 1.5% in 2026. I can also see, actually, that again, while the private corporates are calling for even speedier implementation, on Monday, it came out that the Ifo Business Climate Index was at the highest level since 2022. This is also much needed, but you can see that it’s going in the right direction. You know about this Made for Germany initiative. Since the start, end of July, when I reported here for the first time, we have almost doubled the number of companies which are participating. We are now at a committed number of more than $730 billion of investments committed for the next three years. Of course, we need to keep the pressure on the government, and that is obviously needed.

I am actually very optimistic that Germany will leave this flat growth scenario, which we have seen for too long and is coming back to growth. That obviously helps us, and more details on the IDD.

Moritz, Call Operator: Thank you very much, and looking forward to hearing more. Thank you.

The next question comes from Joseph Dickerson from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I’ve got a question first on private credit in a couple of areas. I’ve seen your disclosure on slide 28, and it seems to me that people tend to conflate private credit with other aspects of asset-backed finance and sponsor lending. I guess, could you just give us your perspective on private credit and the outlook? What are the areas of risk you’re looking at and what are the areas of opportunity that you are also assessing? It seems like only months ago this was a big area of opportunity for banks. It would be interesting to have your opinion on the opportunity. Just on non-bank financial institutions, I know the disclosure in the U.S. is different from Europe, where I don’t think there’s a precise definition, but how do you assess NBFIs and counterparties in that regard?

That’s a first question around private credit. Secondly, on the CET1 ratio with the OCI filter and the op risk, which I think was pulled forward in Q4, can you confirm that going forward, you’ll distribute capital down to the 14% threshold sustainably? I think that’s an important point for investors. Thank you.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Thanks, Joseph, for your questions. It’s James. Let me start with the capital item you mentioned. The short answer is yes. We feel we wanted to indicate with the pro forma we gave even greater confidence about our distribution path from here. Let me just make sure that our comments were understood. The two items that we called out in the commentary are ones that we’ve talked about before. We think we’re in a position now through the EBA guidance and our own actions to bring both into the year-end ratio. You may recall that we talked about some volatility potentially in the ratio, a high step-off, which would not have given you a clean view of our position going into 2026. We think we can now do that.

The guidance of 14% is really encouraging because it puts us in the position to generate excess capital from the start of the year, essentially, and then potentially distribute that. I’d also make the point that with the interim profit recognition that we have, as we sit here today, $2.4 billion of capital is disregarded in the ratio. The 14.5% excludes $2.4 billion of distributions that are earmarked for distribution next year. Of course, 50% of net income in the fourth quarter would also be ready for distribution based on that 50% payout ratio. We would be in a position to exceed that based on earnings above that 14% starting point. We wanted to send a strong message that we’re starting at the top of our range. That gives us greater confidence even than when we spoke a quarter ago.

Just going essentially in reverse order, the NBFI disclosure really isn’t very helpful because it captures all sorts of things that investors aren’t looking for, like clearing houses and insurance exposures and the like. The additional disclosure that we’ve provided of approximately 5% of the loan book being to private credit. We talked a little bit about the nature of that lending. You asked about the opportunity. Look, we’ve been in this market for a very long time. The FIC financing business is not new for us. We’ve been in structured credit lending for many, many years. As a consequence, we think we have real capabilities to innovate and take advantage of opportunities in the market as they develop from here. We also have a good track record in terms of underwriting and discipline against our risk appetite.

While we do see spread compression in the business that’s coming from the additional capital going into private credit, whether that’s from banks or from private credit industry players, we also see opportunities to innovate and grow the book. We’ve been very disciplined, as I say, in that business, but it is one that we’ve successfully and I think profitably grown in the past. We think that’s continuing, notwithstanding the spread compression point I made earlier.

Great, thank you. Just to conclude on the Q4 capital position, it sounds like you’re creating a position of strength for next year.

Position of strength, absolutely. You know, we talked about the OCI filter starting in the third quarter of last year. It was a feature of CRR3 that we and other banks availed ourselves of, a temporary protection of about €800 million in unrealized losses on essentially sovereign debt. We’ve also talked about the fact that in the old regulatory guidance, we would only recognize operational risk RWA increases in the standardized approach that refer to the prior year’s revenues. Based on new EBA guidance, that’s expected to be recognized already in the year. Those are the two items we’re calling out. The good news for investors is it’ll take the volatility out of our disclosure. The guidance of a 14% endpoint we think is encouraging.

That’s fantastic. Thank you.

Moritz, Call Operator: The next question comes from Julia Miotto from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I want to first follow up on the capital distribution point. Is it fair to expect two buybacks next year? One with Q4, of course, and then the second one, perhaps towards mid-year results, given that you start already from 14%, you build excess capital from there, and you intend to distribute everything down to 14%. To be clear, I’m trying to confirm that there are no potential downgrades to the at least $1.5 billion of buybacks expected in 2026 from consensus. Secondly, thank you for the additional disclosure on private credit. That’s helpful. I think you stated that these are exposures to high-quality lenders, investment-grade with conservative LTV. Do you disclose the average LTV and also concentration? How big is the largest exposure? Would you be able to give these numbers, which I think could reassure investors even further? Thank you.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Sure, Julia, thank you. Again, going to the distribution piece, yes is the short answer. We’re all kind of reacting to the rules as they’ve evolved in Europe as to how to craft the distribution policies and go through the approval hurdles. In our case, I think investors should expect that in the, call it the first half, maybe seven, eight months of the year, we would be in a position to distribute what is accrued, if you like, on the basis of that 50%. Assuming there is, in our capital plan, excess capital, it would take a second application, a second approval process to do that, actually similar to what we ultimately did this year. Obviously, as net income rises and the forward view comes into focus, those numbers essentially increase with earnings.

The other thing just to point out is that we talked about last quarter this sort of sustainably above concept. What I want to make clear is that it means that in our capital plan, that amount of capital above 14% isn’t just a flash in the pan that goes away. It also means that opportunities that we see in the capital plan, as they materialize, also can produce excess capital. To give you an example, FRTB is still in our capital plan. Were that to be pushed out or amended, then our capital plan would potentially show additional excess capital. Equally, good news, or in the sense of slower demand for capital in the businesses, can also create excess capital. I want to be clear that that’s how it works.

Therefore, Julia, in your framing of it, that’s what the second application would then take into account with the passage of time. On private credit, we do disclose on page 28 the LTV associated with that 75% block that we refer to as lender finance. That’s the diversified pools of credit that have back leverage against them. That is below 60% with an LTV maintenance covenant in, I think, most or all of the facilities. That’s actually reasonably typical of the type of lending here. In fact, when you go into other types of private capital lending, say subscription finance or NAV financing, you find LTVs even lower. In the case of NAV financing, significantly lower than that 60%. We take it to be, except in the case of fraud. Fraud only really hurts you when you’re in a single lender facility or a single asset facility.

We have a very small exposure to that type of non-recourse single asset as a percentage, again, of that 5% of the loan book. Hopefully that gives you some color for what the exposures look like.

Thank you very much. This was super clear. Just if I can follow up, can you quantify the exposure to this single lender facility that you just mentioned?

I think it’s less than 5% of the 5% by memory. It’s a very small exposure. I would add to that, Julia, that in those cases, given that it’s single asset, the oversight that we put and the LTVs we’re willing to lend at are even more conservative than when it’s a pool. No one is ever going to be perfect in lending, but we feel that these portfolios are very robust in terms of their protection, attachment points, and oversight.

Great, thank you. The last follow-up, the 60% LTV is on 75% of this private credit exposure. On the remaining 25%, what sort of LTVs do you have?

Average would be lower than the 60%, given the composition that I mentioned of what is otherwise there.

Perfect, thank you.

Moritz, Call Operator: The next question comes from Flora Boukhout from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. I wanted to ask you a first question on the operational risk comment you made regarding the annual update that is coming at year end. I just want to understand how much of a one-off this is because you mentioned annual event when you comment on it. Is this something that’s going to hit again every year? If so, do you have an idea of the magnitude? Just to assess how recurring an event this could be. The second question is on the corporate bank revenues. The fee growth is clearly positive, but has been slowing a bit this quarter. The NII declined slightly sequentially, which you commented on.

For you to make the guidance for the full year, it would imply a boost suddenly sequentially in debt revenues for Q4. Is there anything you can give us on how confident you are that there is going to be a rebound, Q on Q, in the corporate bank revenues in Q4? Thank you.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Thanks, Flora. Yes, the op risk item is now a permanent feature in the standardized approach to operational risk RWA. It also, by the way, removes the volatility intra-year. We will record a number in December, and that will be flat through the balance of the year. I think it runs off a three-year average. Each year you have to update for that year’s new revenue number in the three-year. On corporate bank, I do think we are looking at what I’ll call a trough in revenues. I think we want to be a little bit cautious about that prediction. To us, NII should be passing through a trough, a sort of a mild increase going into Q4. Beyond that, fee and commission income, there’s always, remember, a little bit of sequential seasonality.

Q2 tends to be the highest quarter of the year because of dividend season and what happens in the trust and agency business. Q3 is always a little bit softer. This steady build of the fee and commission income streams in the corporate bank, we expect to continue in the years ahead. Obviously, we’ll talk more about that on November 17, 2025. It has a, so I would expect to see Q4 continue to show momentum, perhaps accelerating momentum against where we’ve been very recently. It’s a business where you compete for business with RFPs and put on the business. You have some visibility into, if you like, a pipeline of new activity coming through in corporate bank.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: Let me just add to the last point. I think this is a really good point James is making. Just take, for instance, the example of Miles and More and Lufthansa, where for the last two years, actually, we have invested in the transition now to the corporate bank. We actually can see on various fronts, in particular on the payment platforms with supplying new technology. As James is saying, I would expect a slightly increasing number in Q4 in the corporate bank. In particular, the investments we are doing for the fee and commission building are building up and building up. It’s actually quite a nice story. Even more important is that if you, despite the Q3 number, which was slightly lower than the consensus was, look at the profitability of the corporate bank.

It again increased, and that also shows that more and more we apply technology, and that means that our processes are getting more efficient and the cost-to-income ratio is going in the right direction. Overall, despite potentially a non-beat on the consensus of revenues, the overall development of the corporate bank makes me actually very confident.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Actually, probably one thing just to add, I think, Flora, you may have asked for the op risk, the RWA number that we’re assuming in Q4. It’s about $4.5 billion that would, we think, mechanically come into the denominator for the ratio, just to close that gap.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Moritz, Call Operator: The next question comes from Andrew Coombs from Citi. Please go ahead.

I think I’ve got one on the investment bank and then one on the private bank. On the investment bank, if you take the provisions, you talked about model effects driving higher stage one and two. Perhaps you could elaborate on that and confirm that that’s a one-off model change you wouldn’t expect to repeat. Secondly, on the private bank, you have very, very good broad-based strength across both personal and wealth management. It looks like the margin trends you’re seeing there, particularly around the deposit book, are very different to the corporate bank. Perhaps you could touch upon that and also the operating leverage in that business. You’ve managed to grow revenues and still strip out costs at the same time. Where do you think the operating leverage could move to? Thank you.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Andrew, I’ll briefly take the first item. It was about $100 million of where it was in total in stages one and two. That was almost entirely driven, I think, by model changes. It was a probability of default model that we changed this quarter. Last quarter was an LGD model. We’ve been updating the models to reflect where we are today in the interest rate cycle, new data that’s come in. To your question, we’re done for the year. The model adjustments that lie ahead are negligible. Actually, over the full year, full firm, the model impacts will also be relatively immaterial. That’s what it is in there. $100 million of the $300 million was model items, $100 million thereabouts was CRE.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: Andrew, on the second question, look, if you compare the private bank and the corporate bank, we have to be fair because the starting point for the private bank, obviously, from a cost-to-income ratio profitability is a completely different one than the corporate bank. We had to expect these improvements. The good thing is that Claudio is really running a very, very clear strategy in doing two things. On the one hand, continuous growth on the top line, in particular when it comes to asset gathering. If you look at the assets under management in wealth management, but also in the private bank with the deposit campaign and strategy, it’s really looking well. You know, I told you in my initial remarks to the first question that I expect actually that the private bank will also show a very solid Q4.

On the other hand, all the investments we have done over the last years are actually finally paying off in terms of cost saves. That makes me most confident that next to the nice continuous top line growth, we will see a continued flow of cost reduction because we are going more and more into straight-through processes, in particular in personal banking. You have seen, so to say, month by month, new items when it comes to digital technologies, whether it’s a new mobile app. You can see that these investments are paying off and that costs are coming down. We are continuously reducing our branches and move into a more digital setup. That momentum, which you see, is obviously forecast and expected to hold also into the next years. When you compare to the corporate bank, we need to be fair. It was a different starting point.

Moritz, Call Operator: The next question comes from Stefan Wolf from Autonomous. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. I would like to follow up on the point that you made, Christian, regarding the Lufthansa credit card portfolio. I think that’s now coming basically on board. Could you maybe remind us roughly of what kind of revenue impact we should expect there? The second question relates to your very helpful disclosure of the daily trading P&L, slide 26. You have now had a couple of quarters where you have very strong trading days, very much at the end of the quarter or maybe one of the last one or two days of the quarter, around $100 million often. Can you provide any color of what exactly is causing this kind of spike towards quarter end, or is it a pure random walk? Thank you.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: Stefan, thank you. I won’t give you the detailed numbers because it’s a one-to-one relationship, and we shouldn’t do this. A, we are in the middle of the transition. From an IT point of view, I think this is very important because we talk about a large transition from one bank to the other. It’s going actually very, very smoothly. We started with the pilot at the end of Q2. We have increased the volume then over Q3, and now we are in the middle of moving all clients to our offering. Very, very encouraging start in October. Overall, it is clearly a revenue increment to the corporate bank, which is well in the double digits per year. In my view, with more upside, and the more upside is actually the cross-selling, which we are able to do in our global house bank from corporate to private clients.

This is the strength of Deutsche Bank that we can now apply that to 19 million private clients. That’s what we are going to do. Secondly, this is a signal to other operators with similar loyal cards and similar systems that Deutsche Bank can handle that. That makes this business so attractive, as you think, also when you think about other corporate clients. On the individual clients, clearly value enhancing and good revenues, but I expect far more from cross-selling and with other corporates.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Stefan, it’s a good observation that the market’s revenues will often have a strong sort of quarter close. It depends on the quarters, but very often it is essentially as we evaluate reserves. Day one P&L and illiquidity reserves and the like in the business, those determinations are made towards the end of a month or a quarter. That is kind of one of the reasons why guidance in the business isn’t always perfect to do. There are also events during those last, you know, say, 10 trading days that can influence the result that are part of the, as you say, the actual ebb and flow of the markets. There are also some quarters in which we have specific transactions that are taking place and through our systems that are, if you like, just happening to take place or designed to take place at the quarter end.

This is a quarter where, in fact, we had all three of those things. It was a very strong finish. To your question, it’s not entirely accidental that the quarter can finish strong, especially with the reserve releases. Some of this is difficult to predict precisely.

Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you.

Moritz, Call Operator: The next question comes from Nicolas Payen from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. I have two questions, please. The first one would be on your structural hedging, actually. Could you tell us how you think about your structural hedge supporting your NI trajectory for the next few years? At the end of the day, it’s supposed to become a strengthening tailwind. If you could discuss how you think about it and also maybe with your strong deposit performance, especially in PB, could we see further notional increase supporting further your NI trajectory? The second one would be on your loan developments, especially on the investment bank’s actually been very strong. Just wondering what drove that strong increase sequentially. Thank you.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Hi, Nicolas. Thank you. Yes, I would point you to the disclosure on page 24 of the deck where we show you the hedge amount and the future benefits we expect from the hedge. The answer is we are relatively programmatic about our caterpillar. The assessed duration of the deposit books and rolling over the hedges of that, you can see in the disclosure. Of course, that increases as the deposit books grow, particularly as the private bank deposit book grows because it’s longer, it’s deemed to be longer tenored or modeled as longer tenored, and it is more euro-based than the corporate bank book. What we’re showing you is essentially just the model or the hedge revenues will be in the future, and they do benefit from growth. Think of it as a static portfolio here, but growth in deposits will increase that going forward further.

I want to make one other point here. I think we’ve talked to this in one of the previous calls, but we also take positions to anticipate deposit growth or protect ourselves from specific market environments that we see. It is a little bit more dynamic than simply this one 10-year caterpillar, but in essence, it produces the revenues that you see here. What’s driven the loan growth in the investment bank? Over the course of the year, it’s principally been in the private credit portfolio that we talked about. We have seen good opportunities to deploy the balance sheet there, but also O&A has seen some growth essentially as the business grows and we see more activity. You’ve also seen some deployment there.

Moritz, Call Operator: The next question comes from Tom Hallett from KBW. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, I’m just wondering if there are any underperforming assets on your books which may be deemed non-core because I can see some articles on a DWS data center sale in the pipes. There’s previously been talk about India and possibly Poland. Secondly, maybe thinking a little bit ahead and possibly to the investor day, will you look to run the business on a cost-to-income basis or an operating leverage basis or absolute basis? What are the hurdle rates for allocating capital out to the businesses? I kind of say that because I see the allocations continue to increase towards the investment bank. Thank you.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Tom, I’ll take that and Christian may want to add. Let me just first of all say that I don’t want to speak to specific actions or events in terms of things we might exit until we’re done with that. Certainly, we’re looking at the businesses and we’ve talked about this since Q4 with this SVA, shareholder value-add lens, with a real focus on driving more of the balance sheet to being above hurdle and showing real discipline there. There are a number of ways to do that. It can be pricing. It can be, again, reallocation of capital internally. We do have that discipline and we’ll talk more about that on November 17, 2025, when we come together for the investor deep dive in London.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: I think you’ve said it all, and the only thing is, Tom, I think we already started to implement that step by step. You have seen some action already in the German mortgage book where Claudio decided to exit sub-businesses exactly for that reason. I think we are now in the position to do this, whether it’s on the pricing side or whether it’s on the more consequent capital allocation. As James is saying, you will hear far more on that on November 17, 2025, but I can also tell you that we started to do that, and it shows the first very positive impacts like you see in the private bank.

Okay, thank you.

Moritz, Call Operator: The next question comes from Anke Reingen from RBC. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning and thank you for taking my questions. The first is just coming back on private credit. I mean, I guess you gave quite a lot of detail on the credit side, but can you give us an indication on how much the business has contributed to their top line businesses with private credit and driven the growth just in terms of if there could potentially be a risk if that area is becoming under more scrutiny? Secondly, I know we have your investor day coming up in November, but just looking backwards and acknowledging 2025 isn’t quite completed. If you look back on the 2022-2025 plan, what are the lessons learned in terms of good and bad when you embark on your new plan? Thank you very much.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Goodness, the second is a long open-ended question that I might give to Christian, but we’ll both have, I think, lessons learned to share from the last several years. Look, I would simply point to the financing, the FIC financing revenues you see on page 15. Obviously, it’s not all private credit. There are other activities than private credit in there, including incidentally commission and fee income that typically is earned from distribution of assets. Whether it’s asset-backed facilities or warehousing of, say, CMBS before issuance, there’s a bunch of things going on. To your point about risk, it’s a banking book business, which we think is attractive in terms of its stability in the revenues, its predictability in terms of the spread that we can earn, and its risk profile.

We’ve been, as we’re preparing for today, racking our brains as to whether we have had a risk event, sort of a loss event, at least in the portfolios we’ve been talking about today. I said earlier that we think we’ve got some really good intellectual property. Is there a risk to the business in terms of, you know, a difficulty in the cycle potentially? To be honest, given the nature of the business, we don’t really see that or our own appetite, acknowledging that our appetite has been disciplined and consistent over the years as we’ve been in the business. The short version is we like the business, we think we can continue to grow, but we’ll grow in a measured and sort of risk-appropriate way.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: Look, Anke, really good question. I actually need to think a little bit longer about that. Let me start with two or three lessons learned from a good point of view, from a good side. I’ll give you also one where I think we could have done better. Number one, remember when we did this, that was 10 days after Russia invaded Ukraine. A lot of people told us, "Don’t go for an IDD." We did it. That shows our underlying confidence in this bank, the strengths of this bank, that the global house bank is exactly the right strategy, and that we continue with that IDD. To be honest, I’m really proud of this organization, what they have delivered in those years, which were full of uncertainties. You know.

Moritz, Call Operator: Kept to the plan. The team worked very, very hard. I think it was, at the end of the day, exactly the right decision to go out. That was the first thing that, you know, if you are convinced with something, you should also be courageous. We did this, and it was the right thing. Number two, lesson learned: whenever you do an IDD, you need to take your team on a journey. It’s not only, so to say, for the market and for you, but it’s also something where you need to motivate 90,000 people. I think we did this. Can we do even that in a better way? Yes.

We learned some lessons, and you will see it then, on November 17, 2025, when we talk about how we carry that out internally because it’s a story not only for the market but for our people, because our people are driving this bank. Number three, I think the global health bank strategy in itself, huge success. As I said, we can see that it’s developing better and better from quarter to quarter because people want to have their anchor in times of uncertainty. That’s actually, we are that European answer to that. Number four, with certain, so to say, portfolio decisions, we could have been more consequential, I would say. That is certainly a lesson which we have learned. You know what? There is now time to correct that. Therefore, I’m looking forward to the next IDD.

Ioana Patriniche, Head of Investor Relations, Deutsche Bank: Thank you.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: The next question comes from Chris Robertson from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Good morning, everybody. Two from me. The first one, once again, on capital. Fourteen and a half percent headline CET1, 14% pro forma for Article 468 in the operates headwinds that you flagged. You should see around 20 or 25 basis points of cap gen via retained earnings in Q4. I guess finishing the year 14.2, 14.3. You’ve mentioned you want to finish around 14. Anything else to flag in Q4, maybe on the RWA side or on an accrual rate above 50%? Anything you can already see coming early next year? I’m just trying to think about what sort of position you’re going to be in by the time we get to Q4 numbers in the AGM.

The second, which is a slight follow-up to the points you made earlier, Christian, in the private bank, you’ve kind of had this story so far this year of growing deposits but declining loans. What’s your best sense of how that evolves in the coming few quarters or through the balance of next year? Rates are coming down, borrowing is becoming more affordable, the economy’s doing a bit better, you’ve been investing in the digital setup, as you mentioned. Against that, you’ve got this capital discipline focus. I’m just trying to get the balance of perspectives there. Thank you.

Thanks, Chris. James, I’ll take the first, and I think Christian will do the second. Look, the only thing that is, at this point now, seasonal, given the adjustments we walked you through, is really the share repurchases we do for equity comp delivery in the first quarter. Now, the first quarter tends to be seasonally from an earnings perspective also among the strongest, but otherwise, it is simply the math of organic or net income, less the 50% payout assumption, and then offset by growth or demand in the businesses. Now, sometimes we overestimate demand, and that can, as I said earlier, produce excess capital. We, of course, wish to support the businesses, support clients with the capital deployment. We want to be reasonably conservative in our capital planning to ensure that we have that room to grow.

You have had lots of changes in rules and methodology and so on over the years. I would see that slowing down now that we’re in CRR. That should become more rare. I want to be careful about a forward-looking statement given how much is built into this. Internal capital generation, all of that considered, in a range of about 25 to 30 basis points has been, if you peel through it all, kind of a norm. The question is going to be where all of the ingredients fall out going forward. Short version is we do feel we’re in a strong position to generate excess capital and do so in an accelerating basis in the years ahead.

Moritz, Call Operator: Look, Chris, on the private bank, we clearly have our plans to continue to grow deposits and use that kind of attractive funding to replace more expensive sources. On the business overall, I would say we expect a flattish loan growth in private bank overall. Now, clearly, some growth to see in wealth management. I think it’s an attractive area where we can actually grow and we have plans to do so. In other areas in the private bank, when it comes to mortgages, I would say it’s rather flattish because, again, we are absolutely measuring that portfolio via SVA. If it’s not value accretive, we won’t grow that. Overall, in the private bank, like I said before, Chris, if you look out longer for the next three, four, five years, the real big upside in the private bank is on the asset gathering business and on the investment business.

Not only with our market position in wealth management, but in particular when it comes to retail and personal banking. That’s all tied to the plans of the German government because you will see that next to the state pension, there is the necessity that on the private side, people need to do more. This is where we are looking into. There, we are working on a digital offer. There, we are working on offers for retail clients to grow that business. If you think about our post-bank clients, which are the majority of the retail clients, and their access to those products, it’s actually, for the time being, not very much used. That shows the opportunities we have in that business. Our focus, when it comes to the private bank, is clearly on the asset gathering side.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Okay, thank you very much.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: The next question comes from Jeremy Sigi from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Just a couple of follow-ups, please, on the private bank and the corporate bank. On the private bank, you talked about further cost savings. Are there any step change cost saves still to come through in the private bank, particularly from integration related or system takeout? Any step change, or is it just incremental process efficiency, kind of bit by bit from here? Second question on the corporate bank. You mentioned growth in trade finance year on year. I just wondered what areas that was coming from. Is it Germany, rest of world, any particular industry sectors? Thank you.

Moritz, Call Operator: Jeremy, on the private bank, to be honest, let’s also wait for the IDD because you get a quite good outlook for the next three years what we are doing there. You know, it’s a continuous improvement from actions which we have started to implement. If you think about the plan how to reduce branches and make that business more digital for our clients, this is something which you plan in 2023, 2024. We now see the effects. Therefore, I’m so happy, actually, with the quarter over quarter cost takeout Claudio can do, in particular in the private bank. That is going to continue because we know already now how many branches we close in 2026 and later on. Secondly, we are working constantly on straight-through processing. That is with regard to payments, with regard to the lending process, with regard to the investment process.

That is the reason why we have changed the bank initiatives and investments. You will see that as, obviously, then cost efficiencies going forward. I would expect a continuous improvement on that side, but more details in the IDD.

Jeremy, I’m not aware on the trade finance question, I’m not aware of any particular sort of trend or concentration that we’re seeing in terms of where the growth is coming from. You’ll recall that we’ve been sort of waiting for the growth from the balances. We kind of were stuck at a kind of $115 level. We do now begin to see some growth, and the place where our emphasis is in structured trade finance. That’s really the business that we’re seeking to grow.

Perfect. Thank you.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: The next question comes from Mate Nimas from UBS. Please go ahead.

Moritz, Call Operator: Yes. Good afternoon. Just three shorter questions, please. The first one would be on the IB. In the cost base, G&A expenses show about $100 million increase quarter on quarter. Now, I’m aware that some of that is some pickup in non-operating items, litigation, but any further explanation on that step up and how should they think about the year end from this perspective? The second question is still mainly staying with the IB, commercial real estate. Could you give us an update on that asset class or on that part of the book? Provisions are still at a high level, particularly stage three. I think in the commentary, you called out on the slides, West Coast defaulted assets still. Any thoughts you can share on the outlook in Q4 and next year would be helpful.

Just the last one on the private bank, and I’m cognizant this is something you’ll talk about, hopefully, in two and a half weeks. We are seeing return on tangible equity now firmly above 10% for the second quarter in a row, 12.6% in Q3. Impressive step up from a mid-single-digit level in the previous couple of quarters, and that’s without much improvement, obviously, on lending. Is this the bare minimum level we should be having in mind as a base going into 2026? Any further improvement on the cost side or coming from investment products would offer the upside. Is that the right way to think about it? Thank you.

Thank you for your question. I will take the last one. Look, we clearly expect further operating leverage in the private bank, and we will talk about that in two and a half weeks’ time. Very happy that we are above 10%. That’s what we promised you, that’s what we delivered, and from here, the way is up.

Matthew, on the two items you said, let me see. IB cost, cost base, nothing noteworthy there. There was a bank levy that we booked in Q3 that gets mostly allocated to IB. Then some odds and ends in terms of professional services, market data going up and the like, but nothing that I would call out. On CRE, we’ve talked about this and going on, I think, two years plus. There’s obviously been a cycle, and that cycle has taken us close to the severe stress that we initially called out for the stress-tested portfolio. While I’m cautious about calling an end to this, and I don’t think we’re there, there’s still going to be some provisions we think that will come in time. As I’ve said before, they tend to be valuation adjustments on existing defaulted positions.

In a sense, they’re becoming more and more concentrated, as we called out last quarter, in the West Coast of the United States, in the office portfolio. As that sort of bleeds out and comes to a steadier level, I would expect to see this begin to fall off in the next several quarters. You’ve seen, again, some signs of strength. As cautious as I’d like to be on East Coast, I think office has significantly recovered. Other aspects of commercial real estate outside of office have been strong. We’re looking at it as we think in a healing process.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Thank you.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: The next question comes from Kian Abouhossein from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Just coming back to CRE. On page 29, if I look at the stage 3 loans, in the IB, I guess that’s where some of the CRE issues arose. Just trying to understand if you can give a little bit more detail. Is this several loans? Is this one or two loans where you had default issues? Coming back to the outlook question, if I look at the comment advanced on page 30, advanced stages on the downcycle reached, but U.S. office headwinds remain, considering most of your book is actually office-related. I’m just wondering, what gives you the confidence on your previous statement, the last question, that actually you’re going to see an improvement here considering your low coverage levels? The second question is on.

I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Apologies, yeah. Risk-weighted asset outlook, how should we think about the risk-weighted asset outlook? Should we think about it’s going to remain flattish going forward, or should we think about growth, but then you potentially have further optimizations to do, which leads to the flattish number, i.e., growth versus net is what I’m trying to get to.

Moritz, Call Operator: Yeah. Kian, thanks for the follow-up. Look, it’s a handful of loans. I’d say, you know, concentrated in this quarter, less than ten. There was a concentration of events where we saw valuation changes. One thing I’ve been tracking now for several quarters is the number of loans that are coming up for refinancing or extensions where we see either events or new appraisals coming down the pike. Kian, the answer to your question is those things are beginning to slow down. What I’d call perhaps the forward-looking indicators on these things. I want to be cautious now, having thought we’d found the bottom and discovered false dawns. It does feel like it’s very late cycle at this point on this downcycle in commercial real estate. On RWA, to be honest, we’d like to see healthy growth, just of the businesses and client demand.

As I said earlier, we think our capital plans absolutely accommodate that growth. To your point, we will continue to work on efficiency and also sort of portfolio collection, concentration, if you like, or optimization as time goes on. We think that can contribute to even further improving revenue to RWA profiles and more efficient capital usage. That would be an offset to the simple, if you like, unweighted growth in the balance sheet and business.

When you say you’re coming to the end of the cycle of these readjustments on the loans, the duration must be quite long, no? In the CRE book, more than two years at least. I’m just wondering why we would think about having reached the peak or maturity of the cycle of making adjustments at this point.

Typically, Kian, the structure is of five years. They tend to be extendable, and the point to your question is, you know, we haven’t done a great deal of new lending. This is a portfolio that’s now quite seasoned in terms of either having been extended and refinanced or having gone into default and through sort of a restructuring or into real estate owned. It’s really a question of seasoning of the existing portfolio and a forward look onto loans, as I say, that are coming up to events. Those that are still open are robust properties, other than a handful. That’s really what’s giving us a forward view.

Thank you.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: It looks like there are no more questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ioana Patriniche for any closing remarks.

James von Moltke, Chief Financial Officer, Deutsche Bank: Thank you for joining us and for your questions. For any follow-ups, please come through to the Investor Relations team. We look forward to speaking to you at our fourth quarter call.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank: Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.

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