Knof, speaking after a deal was struck between management and employees over thousands of job reductions, said the bank has made a significant step in cutting costs.
He said he hopes that future strategy plans focus more on customers.
The agreement includes early retirement and reduced hours for older employees, with a focus on those born in 1968 and earlier, the people said. It also includes details on severance packages and retraining programs for employees.
The agreement is central to Chief Executive Manfred Knof's plans to streamline the nation's second-biggest listed lender and return it to profitability.
Italy started the process of selling new 50-year and 7-year bonds via a syndicate of banks on Wednesday, having flagged the new issues the previous day.
The bank also has agreed with its workers council to reduce headcount by 1,700 people by the end of this year as part of its previously announced overhaul.
OPEC+ has lowered its oil demand growth forecast for this year by 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), a report from its experts panel meeting seen by Reuters showed.
The number of new confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose the most since Jan. 9, while the number of people with COVID-19 in French intensive care units set a high for 2021.
U.S. benchmark Treasury yields continued their dip, translating into lower opportunity cost of holding bullion, after scaling one-year highs last week.
Commerzbank's largest shareholder, the German government, lost confidence in Schmitz, who resigned following a meeting of supervisory board members on Wednesday, some of the people said.
The SPAC of Blessing, a former co-president of UBS' Global Wealth Management unit, comes on the heels of former UniCredit boss Jean-Pierre Mustier's announcement to list a shell company in Europe.
Risk appetite got a boost after tepid underlying consumer prices data from the United States on Wednesday eased concerns about a likely surge in inflation from large stimulus packages, which had hammered markets in recent days.
Brazil's central bank said it would sell up to $1 billion in currency swaps on Thursday, extending its recent intervention in the foreign exchange market to support the depreciating currency.
ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Monday the central bank was "closely monitoring" rising borrowing costs - a comment that knocked Germany's 10-year Bund yield off its eight-month high.
The ECB's strategy "is not to burn too much cash trying to lean against the wind - rather to intervene verbally", he said, citing lower levels of ECB bond-buying last week.