German anger over executive pay was stoked after Dresdner Bank said its nine-person management board received a combined €58m ($77.1m) in 2008 – a year in which the bank made a loss of €6.3bn.

Peer Steinbrück, finance minister, told the Bild newspaper the payments were “obscene”. Dresdner was owned by Allianz but was sold last year to Commerzbank, which has subsequently had more than €18bn of support from the government, partly to absorb the problems at Dresdner and complete the troubled merger.