The acquisition of BHW and 850 Deutsche Post retail outlets at the beginning of 2006 was a quantum leap for Postbank’s sales organization and gave a considerable boost to our multichannel strategy. With a total of 4,350 mobile advisers in the new Postbank Finanzberatung AG and 850 own branches, we are now able to offer considerably more comprehensive support to our customers. On the one hand, the objective is to achieve even greater customer satisfaction through an expanded advisory and service offer. Our other aim is to increase the product penetration throughout our customer base. This is how we will systematically boost the great earnings potential that, at our customer level of 14.6 million, is a given.

In order that branch sales run in a more proactive and customer-oriented way, we launched a large-scale training campaign in the year under review. The sales figures already mirror the success of the measures. We also profit from the competence gain through BHW: by deploying specially selected, mobile mortgage lending specialists at the branches, Postbank customers now also have direct access to the long-standing expertise of BHW in matters of home savings and mortgage lending.

Also in 2006, we launched the “Filiale im Wandel“ (Changing Branches) project, aimed at improving the look and feel and service quality of the branches and to increase awareness of the banking services on offer. This project will continue in 2007. More information on this may be found in the Retail Banking chapter. Activities in direct sales channels were coordinated with one another.