Announcing the deal to buy Bankers Trust in November 1998, Rolf-Ernst Breuer, the Deutsche Bank chairman, singled out two business areas that he was particularly excited about. One was asset management; the other was custody.

Breuer enthused: "Here, our businesses are a perfect match. At one stroke, we shall be custodians for a volume of $4 trillion ([euro]4 trillion). We are among the top four in all major markets worldwide and number one in Europe. We shall be the number two in global cross-border custody."