Klaus-Peter Mueller, spokesman for the Commerzbank board, has said that the restructuring programme will only deliver 40% of its planned €1.6bn ($1.5bn) contribution to profits by 2003.

Mueller, speaking at the bank's annual general meeting, is now expecting just €640m to come from the programme's cost reductions and profit improvements. The bank blamed market conditions and the German public's disdain for the Riester Rente, the new pension scheme product - once the white hope of the country's fund managers, but increasingly the white elephant.