You&#x27;ve hit the nail on the head, the derivatives they have on their books are massive compared to shareholder equity.  &quot;Counterparty risk&quot; are the words nobody analysing bank&#x27;s derivatives positions wants to hear.<p>It&#x27;s a terrible mistake there has never been a separation of investment banking from commercial banking in Germany (i realise the line is hard to draw), because the German taxpayer is essentially guaranteeing this shoddily run bank.<p>Unfortunately German politicians seem to be quite oblivious to this problem.  Joe Ackermann (then CEO of DB) was giving Merkel advice on the financial crisis of 2008, so there seems to be some asymmetry of information there...