FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Commerzbank aims to further increase its earnings in 2023 after posting its highest profit in more than a decade. "The bottom line is expected to be significantly higher than in 2022," the institution announced on Thursday. Last year, Commerzbank earned a good 1.4 billion euros on the bottom line, more than three times as much as a year earlier - and that despite charges in the triple-digit millions at the Polish subsidiary mBank. In 2021, Commerzbank had returned to the black after a group restructuring and had earned 430 million euros below the line. In recent months, the interest rate turnaround in the eurozone helped. "Commerzbank is back," summed up Group CEO Manfred Knof.

After two profitable years in a row, Commerzbank is aiming to return to the Dax. In order to accelerate its return to the top German stock market league after almost exactly four and a half years, Commerzbank had already published key data for the past year at the end of January. This Friday evening, Deutsche Börse will announce who will join gas producer Linde in the group of 40 groups in the German share index on February 27. Commerzbank had lost its place in the Dax in the fall of 2018 - to the payment service provider Wirecard, of all companies, which collapsed less than two years later in the wake of an accounting scandal./ben/zb