Auf wiedersehen, champagne working breakfasts. Willkommen to the airport shower facilities.

Hard times have come for some of the world’s most cosseted financial workers with a crackdown on expenses at Deutsche Bank. Under new guidelines that will apply across the bank’s international operations – “with some small regional variations” – financiers are likely to arrive grumpy, unironed and a little smelly at their high-powered meetings.

Second-class rail travel will be the norm in the United States, while in Britain first-class tickets may be bought only for journeys of more than two hours, and in Germany for trips longer than an hour. Taxi trips during a bus or Tube strike will be repaid only with the explicit approval of a banker’s line manager, and similar permission from on high is required if lunch with a client is going to cost more than €65 (£52) per person (the threshold may have to be raised a bit in London).

And if this sounds a world away from the banker’s archetypal business trip of penthouse suites and VIP lounges, it gets worse: Deutsche Bank employees arriving on an early flight are now barred from expensive early hotel check-ins and instead are expected to shower and shave at the airport.

It is all a far cry from the advertising material on the website of the bank – motto: A Passion to Perform – which profiles the relaxed but productive daily routine of some of its 73,000 staff. For example, Ursula, from Legal Entity in Frankfurt, is shown casually picking up her café latte in the morning and looking forward to the bank’s annual ski-season party.

In part the crackdown on staff outgoings is due to the sub-prime lending crisis, as belts are tightened across the banking world. But the updated rule book also reflects German business’s sensitivity after the Volkswagen affair.

The public image of Europe’s largest car manufacturer was severely tarnished when it was revealed that a VW slush fund was paying for visits to brothels, Viagra tablets and the flights of escort girls for senior union officials. “Deutsche Bank does not approve of adult entertainment of any kind and will not repay such expenses,” says the new directive. Company credit cards, in other words, cannot be used to pay for visits to brothels or strip clubs, even if these are intended as bonding activities with clients.

The new regime has something of a military feel, and with good reason: Deutsche Bank’s chief executive Josef Ackermann – who is paid €12 million (£9.6 million) a year – is a reserve colonel in the Swiss Army. One of his recent decisions was to hire General Ulrich Zwygart, in charge of Swiss military training, as managing director and global head of learning and development of Deutsche Bank in London, raising fears that the bank might be planning to introduce a boot camp.

It has since emerged that executives will instead be taught “intelligent leadership”, drawing on crises in battle and in civilian life. General Zwygart has been using the Swiss Army to run four-day crash courses for executives. “It’s cheaper than going to Harvard Business School,” he claims.

Expenses crunch

— After Deutsche Bank’s $10 billion (£5 billion) takeover of Bankers Trust in 1998, at the height of the Asian financial crisis, it issued a warning to staff over the use of inflight phone calls. Bills are said to have cost as much as $3,000 a call, more than enough to buy a car, let alone cover taxi receipts

— Earlier this year Goldman Sachs informed its London staff that free taxis home and meals sent to their desks would have to be restricted

— Up to 250 graduates who bagged a job at Bear Stearns in the US are having to come to terms with the fact that their dream jobs are no more. Although Bear’s rescuer JPMorgan Chase has taken on some of the graduates others have missed out
 
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3671981.ece