What next for Dresdner's IT staff?

Dresdner's middle and back-office staff look set to be at the sharp end of the cost-cutting plan being implemented by new owner Commerzbank, with around 70% of the 9,000 jobs being cut worldwide expected to come in back office, control and production units.

The bank says it's hoping for voluntary redundancies and won't enforce any job losses until 2011, but now is probably as good a time as any for Dresdner technologists to look for new jobs.

Part of the problem, reckons Bob McDowall, analyst at TowerGroup, is that the two banks have both built in-house systems.

"The German banks have traditionally used proprietary systems and when you use these, rather than third-party systems, integration is more difficult."

And this means both banks will have sizeable IT departments. "They will rationalise IT but it could take some time," he adds.

It's not clear yet who's going to go at Dresdner. But, according to a report by Deutsche, lower-level operational IT roles are typically first to go.

The report suggests that the vast majority of IT redundancies come from 'internal restructuring', or when overlaps occur. And the options don't look great for those on the receiving end of cuts.

Rajeena Brar, senior consultant at Pierre Audoin Consultants, says: "In the current market conditions, there aren't any banks looking to recruit on a large scale."

Retail banks, however, are looking to bolster their tech teams as they gear up for the single euro payments area (Sepa), says Brar.

"Banks are building up the scale to offer Sepa payment processing and need to attract large volumes of people to do that," she explains.

Dresdner's IT bankers aren't the only ones facing an uncertain future. Morgan Stanley chopped 150 London-based IT staff in February and Citi said it would look to save up to 20% on technology going forward this year.

What's more, Barclays announced plans to offshore 1,800 technology jobs and Lloyds TSB intends to axe 450 IT positions.