FRANKFURT, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Germany's second largest bank Commerzbank recorded a significant slump of net profit in 2017, the bank said in a statement on Thursday.
Commerzbank achieved a net profit of 156 million euros, down year on year by 44.09 percent, according to the annual financial report published by the bank.
The operating profit dropped by 6.86 percent to 1.3 billion euros. However, the slide deteriorated in the last quarter of 2017 when the bank posted a 52.81 percent decrease of operating profit.
Commerzbank was seriously exposed to the debt crisis in Europe since 2009 and has been struggling to recover with the aid of a government bailout. With an aim to grow in the long run, Commerzbank is undergoing restructuring and digitalization.
"We made good progress in 2017: we have advanced the digitalization of the bank and have grown strongly. Therefore we aim to resume dividend payments for financial year 2018," said Commerzbank CEO Martin Zielke.
The Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, a criterion adopted by the European Central bank to measure the resilience of banks in times of economic downturn, has been improving steadily, according to the Commerzbank report. It went up to 14.1 percent percent from 13.5 percent at the end of September 2017 and 12.3 percent at end of 2016.
As part its restructuring effort, Commerzbank plans to cut over 7,000 full time jobs.
