Commerzbank

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Commerzbank AG

Type	Public
Founded	26 February 1870
Headquarters	Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Key people	Klaus-Peter Müller
Industry	Finance and Insurance
Products	Commercial banking, Investment banking
Employees	33,000 (7,500 of these outside Germany)
Website	www.commerzbank.com

Commerzbank AG (ISIN: DE0008032004, DAX: CBK) is the second-largest bank in Germany (after Deutsche Bank) and headquartered in Frankfurt am Main.

Commerzbank is mainly active in commercial banking, retail banking and mortgaging. It suffered reversals in investment banking and shuttered its Commerzbank Securities investment banking unit.

Commerzbank holds a nationwide network of branch offices throughout Germany and numerous branch offices all over the EU and Europe (namely Luxembourg, Poland, Spain and Switzerland) and with a leading market share in online banking. EuroHypo is an integral part of Commerzbank.

The bank further holds representations and holdings in major commercial and financial centers in Asia and the Americas.

[edit] History

The headquarters tower

Commerzbank was founded in 1870 by individual and merchant bankers in Hamburg. After merging with Berliner Bank, it moved its headquarters to Berlin in 1905. After World War II, the headquarters first moved to Düsseldorf and, in 1958, to Germany's financial centre, Frankfurt.

The Commerzbank Tower (designed by British architect Norman Foster) was Europe's first ecological skyscraper and also, from its completion in 1997 until 2004, Europe's tallest skyscraper at a height of 301 meters.

Commerzbank was the first German bank to establish a branch in New York City in 1971.