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A protester wearing a jacket with an inscription reading "Performance which creates suffering" stands in front of Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany October 29, 2015. Deutsche Bank said it was reducing its workforce by 15,000 as new Chief Executive John Cryan seeks to improve returns at Germany's biggest bank. The lender said it would axe 9,000 full-time jobs and 6,000 external contractor positions. Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach

With Deutsche Bank’s new CEO John Cryan implementing a new strategy shift to improve returns, it is all set to cut down 15,000 jobs and shed assets that host almost 20,000 employees.

Since joining the company as CEO in July, Cryan has been under great pressure to end costly litigations arising from past scandals, adopt new banking policies to tighten the system, rebuild morale among employees and close a series of unprofitable business units in an attempt to make the future of the bank brighter.

“In the year 2015 … unless there’s a miracle, we are most likely to report a loss for the year,” Cryan said in at a press conference in Frankfurt, according to the Handelsblatt.

He said in the two years, the bank would have weak forecasts. "I do not think that 2016 and 2017 will be strong years," he told Reuters reporters on Thursday. Following the announcement, Deutsche bank’s shares plummeted by six percent.

According to Reuters, traders were highly disappointed with the news, with one responded saying that two years without dividends and the CEO’s forecast of two years of weak business would shoo investors away. Meanwhile, co-CEO Juergen Fitschen felt that the bank wasn’t doing enough for the transforming environment. "Cultural change ... it needs to be filled with content,” he said while noting that they have only begun with what was needed to be done.

The lender is to axe 9,000 full-time jobs and 6,000 external contractor positions. The bank announced that it would probably reduce its risk-weighted assets to about 320 billion euros (AU$494.52 billion) by end-2018. “Two years of dividend cuts, very aggressive cost-cutting. … There’s more wrong with this business than many people thought,” said Chris Wheeler, an analyst with Atlantic Equities LLP, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Deutsche bank also mentioned that it has hoped to decrease non-interest expenses to less than 22 billion euros (AU$ 34 billion) by 2018 from 23.8 billion euros (AU$ 36.81 billion) recorded in the last year, and its cost ratio to 70 percent in 2018 straight from 84.3 percent.

Other leading major international banks such as JP Morgan and UBS have also brought changes to tackle the problem of decreasing interests and tightening lending rules.

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