The Commerzbank reflected better than expected thanks to growing customer numbers in daily operations. The operating result increased by one percent to 1.26 billion euros in 2019, and earnings improved to 8.64 (previous year: 8.57) billion euros thanks to increasing customer numbers. The bottom line, however, was that profit fell by a quarter to 644 million euros due to the costs of the renewed corporate restructuring and higher taxes, as the money house announced on Thursday. Analysts had expected poorer numbers, the stock rose by five percent in pre-exchange trading.

"We ended the financial year with a better operating result than expected in the meantime," said CEO Martin Zielke. The Commerzbank come faster in the Group restructuring ahead of schedule. "That makes me more optimistic about our return expectations than I was last autumn." Investors and supervisors had criticized the goal of a return of four percent in 2023 as being too ambitious.

Under the pressure of low interest rates, fierce competition and the deteriorating economic outlook, Zielke had at the end of September, among other things, the reduction of 4,300 jobs across the group, the closure of 200 of the 1,000 branches, the takeover of the online subsidiary Comdirect and the sale of the Polish subsidiary mBank announced. According to insiders, however, there was only one promising bidder for mBank after other potential buyers withdrew in Warsaw out of fear of government interference.