Home Market Important for Deutsche Bank: Anshu Jain

Berlin: India-born Anshu Jain, designated co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, has underlined the importance of the home market for growing business and said the lender will continue expansion in Germany, in the emerging markets and in the United States.
This is the first time since his nomination in July last year that Jain has given some hint about the strategy the bank will pursue in the coming years.
"There was a time when global banks floated above their countries," said Jain, who until now headed Deutsche Bank's investment banking division based in London.
But that has changed and the "importance of the home market is greater now than ever before".
Therefore, it is a priority for Deutsche Bank "to get into our home market and continuing to expand in the emerging markets and in the U.S", he said in a CNBC TV interview.
Geographically, these regions will be the main priority for him and his co-CEO Juergen Fitschen in the coming years, Jain said. Deutsche Bank’s out-going chairman Josef Ackermann is scheduled to hand over the reins of the Germany's largest bank to Jain and Fitschen at the annual shareholders' meeting in Frankfurt on May 31. They will officially take charge on June 1.
There has been concern in Germany that the new leadership will give greater importance to the highly profitable investment banking and retail banking will play only a subordinate role in the future.
Jain said in the interview that Deutsche Bank will focus more strongly on retail business in Germany, where it has been quite successful in the past years. Its acquisition of the Deutsche Post subsidiary Postbank, was very crucial for the lender.
"It made Deutsche Bank a dominant retail player in our home market," he said.
The bank will continue to focus on those sectors "where we have done well and we think we can do better", he said.
Deutsche Bank is one of the leading banks in the U.S. With more than 11,000 employees and 20 locations, U.S business is extremely important for the bank, he said.
Even though the situation in Greece is worrying, Europe has made some "tremendous progress" in the past six months, Jain said, adding, "Away from Greece, we have a pretty encouraging situation."