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Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s largest lender, is considering cutting about 23,000 jobs, or almost one quarter of its workforce, Reuters reported, citing unidentified people in the finance industry.

The bulk of the reductions will come mainly from technology operations and the sale of its Deutsche Postbank AG unit, Reuters said. Deutsche Bank employed 98,647 people at the end of June, including 14,940 at Postbank, a German consumer lender, according to its filings. Klaus Winker, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, declined to comment.

Co-Chief Executive Officer John Cryan, 54, who replaced Anshu Jain in July, is pressing ahead with the bank’s plan to bolster profitability by reducing expenses and cutting back businesses. On his first day in the job, he pledged to sell the Postbank unit, as outlined in April, and tackle the company’s “swollen” cost base and “antiquated and inadequate” technology.

Deutsche Bank shares rose 0.5 percent to 25.76 euros at 5:47 p.m. in Frankfurt after declining on the previous two trading days. They have increased about 3.1 percent this year.

Shrinking Assets

Cryan plans to complete the bank’s plans by the end of next month. When taking over as co-CEO with Juergen Fitschen, he inherited a strategy to boost returns by lowering expenses by about 15 percent by 2020 and shrinking assets at the investment bank by as much as 17 percent through 2018.

While that plan foresaw the bank closing as many as 200 consumer banking branches and exiting up to 10 countries, the company stopped short of saying how many jobs would be lost and where.

Deutsche Bank has said it plans to divest Bonn-based Postbank by the end of next year via a trade sale or by issuing shares to the public.

The last time the company announced job cuts was in 2012, when it set a target of eliminating almost 2,000 positions, with the largest part at the investment bank, according to company filings.

Since the end of 2013, the transaction banking and asset and wealth management units have seen their total headcount shrink the most of the company’s four operating units while the investment bank recorded the biggest decrease in front office staff, the filings show.

(Updates with cost cuts in fifth paragraph.)