Deutsche Bank has announced that profits at the bank reached their highest level since 2013 in the latest quarter.

Profit before tax was up 12 per cent year-on-year to € 1.9 billion, with net revenue growth jumping five per cent to € 7.7. billion – the highest in seven years.

Deutsche Bank boss Christian Sewing said the bank is "well on track" to meeting its 2025 targets which are part of its 'Global Hausbank' strategy.

The strategy forms part of the bank's aim to become the "first point of contact for financial matters" and to strengthen its cross-divisional collaboration.

When it announced the strategy last year, Deutsche Bank committed to new capital distribution plans. Following the first quarter results, the bank said it would increase its cash dividend to € 0.30 per share, up 50 per cent from 2021.

"We aim to accelerate execution of our strategy through a number of measures announced today: raising our ambitions for operational efficiency, boosting capital efficiency to drive returns and support shareholder distributions, and seizing opportunities to outperform on our revenue growth targets," said the bank's chief executive. "Strong organic capital generation enables us to re-affirm our commitment to distributions and we are preparing to conduct further share buybacks later this year."

Despite its accounts being the strongest in a decade, the bank said it plans to target further operational efficiency measures to achieve cost savings of between € 2.0 billion to € 2.5 billion.

The financial results come a week after reports revealed that Deutsche Bank could be planning to shrink its executive board from nine to 10 and axe roles in its infrastructure and private banking business as part of a cost savings exercise.

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