As business ambitions go, Thomas Ganick’s is not huge. He would like to earn his living cleaning shoes – in Germany. He tried in Berlin, but after failing to find anywhere suitable to set up his stool and brush holders, recently moved to Frankfurt.

So far, he is still working from a temporary, pavement site in the city’s fashionable Goethestrasse. He asked Deutsche Bank if he could set up in its entrance lobby, providing the sort of services common in other financial centres such as London or New York – without success. “They are the big ‘global players’ but when you ask them here, they say they don’t know if it would have any resonance,” complains Mr Ganick, 44.