On Thursday night, and subsequently in the DPVKOM/CGPT tariff community, Deutsche Postbank AG and Deutsche Postgewerkschaft (DPG) came to a consensus regarding the question of the company's sites. The most important results: operations are to cease at four of the current 14 locations throughout Germany. Postbank Direkt-Service will in future concentrate on three sites. At the same time, Postbank has agreed to abstain from operational job cuts until December 31, 2004.

To secure future development and growth of Postbank, the Postbank Board of Directors intends to implement a change within the organisation. The Boards of Postbank and the Unions have agreed on detailed and accompanying measures regarding the sites. This supports a stronger focus on markets and customers. At the same time, the interests of the employees are to be secured by retaining safe and attractive jobs. As in the past, all measures are to be implemented in a socially acceptable manner. The Works Council will be actively integrated into the restructuring process.

Operations will cease at the Essen, Karlsruhe, Ludwigshafen and Nuremberg sites. The jobs at the remaining ten sites will be guaranteed until December 31, 2004. Operations will be ceased at the first of the sites to be closed down on July 1, 2001. The other three sites will be closed by December 31, 2002. The total number of employees must not fall below 7,500 until then. Currently, Postbank has a total of 11,500 employees.

The employees of the four sites to be closed down will be categorised in the following sequence for other jobs in the bank, in the banking group, in the financial services division of Deutsche Post, in the interServ GmbH employment company or in other areas of Deutsche Post AG. interServ GmbH is a wholly owned Postbank subsidiary and will be posting staff outsourced to them for activities outside Postbank.

The Direkt-Service, the Postbank customer hotline, currently operating at eleven sites, will in future concentrate on three. In future, Direkt-Service operations will only be carried out at the Stuttgart, Hanover and Dortmund sites. The number of jobs will be cut from currently 1,050 to 750. This concentration will commence on July 1, 2001 and is expected to be completed by December 31, 2001. Under certain conditions, 100 additional jobs are to be created for Direkt-Service. The two easytrade direct brokerage call centres in Cologne and Leipzig are to remain.