Deutsche Bank has dismissed as "speculative" reports that it is considering outsourcing or relocating 5500 IT jobs worldwide.
The denial was issued in response to a July 28 report in German daily Die Welt that up to 5500 jobs from Deutsche's global technology and operations sector are either to be farmed out to external service providers or relocated to low-wage countries.
The bank says the figures quoted by the report - and subsequently passed off by the FT as sourced from bank insiders - are "speculative".
In a statement, the German bank says: "There is no factual basis for such decision on this matter and there are no concrete figures."
Deutsche says Die Welt based its story on documentation dating from the year 2002 that mentions the number of jobs that theoretically could be affected by outsourcing strategies or relocation.
"It has obviously misinterpreted this data," says the bank statement. "It is important to note that numbers mentioned in the slide are based on theoretical scenarios arising from possible outsourcing strategies and the relocation of work processes based on market trends prevailing at the time."
Deutsche Bank points to the outsourcing of its IT infrastructure to IBM, and HR systems software development to Accenture as examples of its overall outsourcing strategy.