Banking group Lloyds TSB was today reported to be working on plans to buy Germany’s Dresdner Bank from insurance giant Allianz.

ONE of Germany’s leading banks financed Nazi arms makers and owned a stake in a company that built crematoria at the Auschwitz concentration camp, authors of a bank-commissioned report found yesterday.

The German government is nominating an economics professor as central bank president to succeed Ernst Welteke, who stepped down for taking a free hotel stay from a commercial bank.

The head of Germany’s Bundesbank, Ernst Welteke, resigned today after coming under heavy criticism for taking a free hotel stay from a commercial bank, the central bank said.

The Bundesbank has said it has decided to adopt the European Central Bank's ethical code of conduct, which prohibits members from accepting gifts from outside parties.

Germany’s central bank president has agreed under pressure to step aside temporarily after prosecutors opened an inquiry into a hotel stay that a commercial bank paid for him, the Bundesbank said.

A Bundesbank spokesman has said that bank president Ernst Welteke is "no longer ruling out resignation" as the controversy over corporate hospitality he accepted gathers momentum.

Allianz, the insurer that joined forces with Dresdner Bank to become the world's fourth largest financial group has swung back into profit, according to latest results.

Lee Westwood today won a kilo of gold worth approximately £7,500 (€10,785) for a hole-in-one during his final round in the Linde German Masters.

Allianz AG insurance firm is to take over Germany's third largest bank, Dresdner Bank AG.

Germany's four biggest banks will develop a single standard of digital signature by the end of this year to allow electronic commerce via mobile telephones and hand-held organisers.