Still in the game

On January 1 Deutsche Bank gains a new board member. Apart from the fact that he's colourful, aggressive, and a good mathematician, with swap trading and risk management experience, he's not much different from the patrician Deutsche bankers he'll be joining.

But the board of Deutsche Bank have high hopes that hiring Thomas Fischer as their new chief financial officer will prove a vital step in their quest to build a global investment-cum-commercial bank. His presence is even more essential now that Deutsche has bought Bankers Trust, another piece of the jigsaw.

Everyone agrees Fischer is tough, political and smart - the Michael Douglas of the financial markets. But he's also an accomplished risk manager and in the past three years has proved himself capable of running - and considerably improving - one of Germany's biggest savings banks, Landesgirokasse Stuttgart.

Growth in banking today, wrote Fischer in his annual chairman's statement this year,...