Deutsche Bank posted a third-quarter loss, weighed down by an expected €2.3 billion charge on Deutsche Postbank, and stuck with a cautious outlook for 2011.
By 2011, Germany's flagship lender aims to achieve €10 billion pretax profit at group level.
"While some of the environmental variables are in line with or ahead of our assumptions, others have not yet reached the expected levels, particularly with respect to the normalisation of interest rates," the bank said.
Although Deutsche Bank warned in September that it would post a quarterly loss due to weaker sales and trading activity in July and August, it said on Wednesday there had been a "strong rebound" in September.
Revenues in corporate banking and securities -- the cash cow of Deutsche Bank's investment bank -- eased to €4.2 billion in the third quarter from €4.4 billion in the year-earlier period.
It still accounted for the lion's share of the group's overall revenues of €5 billion . Without the Postbank charge, Deutsche Bank's revenues were €7.3 billion.
Slower revenues at the investment bank echo a trend seen among rivals Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, and UBS mainly due to subdued client activity and lower volumes.
Germany's flagship lender posted a pretax loss of €1 billion, in line with the €1.04 billion euro consensus in a Reuters poll.
Reuters