As of October 1, 2006, Postbank has concluded its official integration program for Postbank, BHW and its branches ahead of schedule. The Bonn-based bank had set an original target date for the end of 2006, but was able to lay the crucial foundations for Group's future before this date. Wulf von Schimmelmann, Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Postbank AG said: "Naturally this does not mean that there is nothing left to be done. It will take a little more time to fully integrate all the processes and implement all the details. However, the integration targets were achieved more rapidly than expected and we will now run with the further merging of our original three units in daily operations." Postbank acquired the Hameln-based mortgage lender and Deutsche Post's 850 strongest selling branches at the beginning of January 2006. Since then, the new Group has employed around 23,000 people, compared to around 9,200 prior to the takeover.

Von Schimmelmann highlighted the merging of the mobile sales services in Postbank Finanzberatung AG and the reorganization of branch sales as important milestones in the program. "Sales are the heartbeat of the new Group. We therefore made sales integration a priority," said von Schimmelmann.

Postbank's and BHW's IT functions were also merged at the end of September. The companies worked together to lay the important foundations for the credit factory that is currently being set up in Hameln. These changes were facilitated in particular by the rapid conclusion of a socially acceptable reconciliation of interests with employee representatives.

The Chairman of the Management Board referred to "the fact that the company had also come together on an individual level and that employees now not only knew each other significantly better, but also respected each others' achievements accordingly" as at least as important as reaching the above milestones.

Von Schimmelmann was confident of making further progress towards the company's stated goal of becoming the number one financial services provider for retail customers in Germany. "We have shown that we can handle even major challenges such as the integration of Postbank, BHW and branches successfully and rapidly," he remarked. "At the same time, we have also managed to keep operating business on track." He underlined that many similar projects had failed even at this late stage due to overstretching due to the double workload and emphasized that the commitment and performance of employees had made the difference in the case of Postbank.