Deutsche Bank UK online launch put on ice

The UK launch of Maxblue, the online brokerage arm of Deutsche Bank, has been put on hold indefinitely because of poor share-trading conditions.

Maxblue has already launched in Brazil, Germany, Italy and Spain, but future expansion has been frozen until the retail brokerage market eases.

Maxblue UK marketing director Justin Basini says that launching into such an unstable market would be “suicide”. He adds: “We have decided that this is just not a good time to launch this product. Retail consumers are not trading shares in any large volumes, so we are going to wait until things pick up a bit.”

Spirit Integrated Communications was supposed to have been handling the &£650,000 launch campaign, but Basini says no money will be committed to creating the campaign until a definite launch date is decided.

The news comes after Deutsche Bank announced plans to restructure its asset management and private and corporate banking divisions. Under the new strategy, the retail banking arm Deutsche Bank 24, Maxblue, private banking and small-scale corporate banking will be run by a single management team. Deutsche Bank declines to comment on the possibility of job losses.

Basini says the restructure will mean the marketing teams will work more closely together, but the Maxblue brand will be retained. He says he is not aware of any redundancies in the department.

When Maxblue eventually launches in the UK, it will be in partnership with another finance company. Basini is still negotiating with possible partners, but says that even if one is found, Maxblue will not launch until conditions improve.