HispanicBusiness

Deutsche Bank said Tuesday it was slashing a total of 1,900 jobs as it steps up its cost-cutting drive after the bank's second-quarter profit plunged in the wake of Europe's long-running debt crisis.

Announcing plans to cut costs by 3 billion euros (3.7 billion dollars), Deutsche said 1,500 of the job cuts would be in the lender's investment banking division, which posted a 63-per-cent slump in pre-tax profit to 357 million euros as Europe's debt crisis hit trading income.

Germany's biggest bank said group net profit fell 46-per-cent to 661 million euros for the three months to the end of June.

The latest quarterly results and job cuts represent a rather downbeat start for bank's new leadership - Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen - who took over as the bank's new co-chief executives at the end of May.

Since then, Deutsche has also found itself caught up in the rate-rigging scandal gripping London.

"In the second quarter, the bank's performance was impacted by a volatile environment," said Fitschen and Jain in a statement.

"The European sovereign debt crisis continues to weigh on investor confidence and client activity across the bank," they said.

The bank's retailing operations, which includes its network of branches, also posted a 13-per-cent fall in pre-tax profit to 398 million euros.

Deutsche is one of a group of major global banks, including Britain's Barclays and HSBC, which face allegations of fixing the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor), which sets international commercial and consumer rates.

In a statement Tuesday, however, Deutsche's board threw its weight behind the bank's management.

"The current investigations show that no sitting or former member of the board acted in any inappropriate way" in setting the Libor, board chairman Paul Achleitner said in a letter to bank employees.