Lisa Robins is to leave her role as head of global transaction banking for Asia Pacific.

No permanent replacement has been named, but in the interim her role will be assumed jointly by John Gibbons, head of global transaction banking, and James McMurdo, head of corporate and investment banking for Asia Pacific

A spokesperson for the bank tells GTR that “we are committed to accelerated growth in Asia Pacific”, but no detail on Robins’ next move was forthcoming. She has been in the role for six years.

Deutsche Bank has had a tough couple of years in the trade and transaction banking space in Asia Pacific. A senior source at the bank recently said that it was struggling to compete with the aggressive pricing in East and Southeast Asia.

Having ramped down assets significantly last year to deal with capital constraints, the trade team is now tasked with building their book in a market where euro-based banks are already at a disadvantage. Asia Pacific trade assets are denominated in US dollar and so European banks such as Deutsche struggle for level playing conditions against highly liquid US and Japanese banks.

With the market flush with liquidity, pricing has been forced down, leaving big banks to accept a return on equity of between 2 and 3%, where they may previously have been nudging closer to 10%.

Earlier this year, Deutsche lost its head of trade finance for Asia Pacific, Shivkumar Seerapu, to Lloyds Bank. He was replaced by Atul Jain.