More than 80 countries signed an agreement in Berlin on Wednesday that could end banking secrecy in the global battle against tax evasion and fraud, even though critics pointed to shortcomings in the deal.
UPDATE: A Europe-wide banking audit was failed by just one small German bank on Sunday, but on Monday an influential business confidence index fell to its lowest level for almost two years.
Berlin is suing one of Switzerland's largest banks in its bid to recuperate hundreds of million euros that went missing during the reunification of East and West Germany, the bank said Thursday.
Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest lender, said on Thursday it returned to profit last year after suffering massive loses in 2012, but it warned the environment would remain difficult this year.
Germany is "confident" EU ministers will make progress at talks next week on a planned banking union, a spokesman said on Friday, as the government hosted a high-level meeting.
The German financial watchdog, BaFin, said on Wednesday it was looking into allegations of possible manipulation by banks in gold and silver price-fixing.
Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest bank, said Wednesday that it will undertake a €2.5 billion capital hike to repay further chunks of a state bailout it received during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Commmerzbank, Germany's second-biggest bank, said on Monday its full-year net profit tumbled to just €6.0 million in 2012 after heavy write downs pushed it into the red in the fourth quarter.
Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest bank, will likely propose next month cutting as many as 6,500 jobs, some 18 percent of the workforce, a number of newspapers reported on Friday.
Divisions between Germany and France were set to dominate the European Union summit which opened on Thursday afternoon, with the aim of shoring economic and monetary union in the face of the eurozone crisis.
Hundreds of people again took to the streets of Frankfurt and Berlin on Saturday to demonstrate against perceived injustice in the financial system, but the crowds were notably smaller than those seen at protests one week ago.
The EU is set to blacklist a German-based Iranian-owned bank which it believes is involved in the Islamic republic's secret nuclear weapons' programme, a German government official said Friday.
Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, plans to restructure its US operations to sidestep new regulations that could have forced it to raise billions in new capital, a report said Wednesday.
The German bank Commerzbank said Wednesday it would redeem €14.3 billion in silent participations held by the government by June, with a capital increase worth €11 billion.
Wages earned by top German bosses have climbed back to pre-crisis levels but are tied more closely to a company's longer-term performances, a private study showed on Wednesday.
Troubled regional bank WestLB announced Wednesday that Germany's government had submitted a last-minute restructuring plan to the European Commission that included cutting a third of its assets by 2015.
Alarm bells are ringing in Berlin as Germany's image suffers across the European Union, where it has increasingly been seen as a bully imposing its views on its partners during the eurozone debt crisis. AFP's Patrick Rahir reports.
A German five-year bond issue on Wednesday was undersubscribed, figures released by the Bundesbank showed, a sign that even Germany's benchmark debt has not been spared by the latest eurozone crisis.
An alternative German bank whose stated mission was to give customers democratic control over how their deposits were used was shut down late on Wednesday because of its runaway debt.
German banks continue to bicker over how to meet federal regulator demands to reduce exorbitant cash machine fees by August 31, a media report said on Wednesday.
Investors will comb through the results of stress tests on state-owned German banks this week for signs of trouble in the heart of Europe's biggest economy.
Tehran has used a small Iranian-owned bank in Germany to circumvent sanctions slapped on firms blacklisted for involvement in the Islamic republic's missile programmes, a newspaper report said Monday.
<b>Germany and other European governments on Thursday took a big step towards revealing if banks can withstand shocks such as hit the global economy two years ago, and now in reaction to concern about finances in Spain.</b>
