After more than €9bn ($12.6bn) of losses last year, these are the toughest of times for Germany’s Landesbank sector. Two of the seven institutions have this month unexpectedly parted company with their chief executives, and the talk in Germany is of government pressure to force consolidation on the regionally owned banks, which Berlin has never controlled.

Gunter Dunkel, chief executive of NordLB, is nevertheless upbeat about the future of his bank, which enjoys closer links to the more stable, retail-led savings bank sector than most peers.