In March 2025, Germany announced its biggest fiscal expansion since reunification, and European rates markets repriced almost overnight. In the week that followed, Deutsche Bank was the number one dealer by DV01 for risk traded with clients in German government bonds across the largest platforms. On its Autobahn FX platform, real-money investors bought euro against the dollar in the largest volumes on record, through the German fiscal shift and the US tariff announcements that followed.
“When clients turn to Deutsche Bank in Europe, they know they can rely on our product capabilities, liquidity and consistency – especially in challenging markets, when they need us most across our flow and solutions businesses,” says Panos Stergiou, global head of FIC institutional and corporate client coverage and global co-head of FIC structuring.
Deutsche organises its fixed income business around three pillars: liquidity provision; risk management and investment solutions; and financing. 2025 was the final year of a five-year build-out across all three. The bank completed one of the largest emerging markets business expansions among international banks, including a series of senior strategic hires across sales and trading. That investment translated into significant gains in CEEMEA flow credit, where its market share increased materially and the franchise achieved a top-tier position.
The bank was at the centre of Europe’s biggest risk events. As Dutch pension funds moved to a new pension framework, one of the most significant liability-driven risk events in European rates in years, Deutsche designed largescale risk transfers that let them reduce long-dated rate exposure.
When clients turn to Deutsche Bank in Europe, they know they can rely on our product capabilities, liquidity and consistency – especially in challenging markets
Panos Stergiou
It managed duration on major sovereign deals, including Spain’s €15 billion 10-year bond, Ireland’s €3 billion 30-year benchmark and the UK Debt Management Office’s 15-year, on which it was the only duration manager. It finished 2025 first in the euro supranational, agency and municipal league table, with 75 deals and a 7.19% share, according to Bond Radar.
Its solutions business grew fastest. Deutsche’s cross-asset repack desk rose from ninth to first over three years, lifting its market share from 3.9% to 15.6%, according to Bloomberg. In 2025, it executed the largest-ever transaction through SPIRE, the multi-dealer repackaging vehicle: a £1.5 billion cross-currency repack for a US insurer.
Deutsche distributed more than €15 billion of fixed income structured notes globally, including more than $500 million of Shariah-compliant lira-linked notes, making it the largest manufacturer of that structure in 2025, a trend that has continued into 2026. It also launched dbCREST, the first systematic strategy built on single-name credit default swaps, which sold more than $1.5 billion.
For Air Liquide’s €2.85 billion acquisition of Korea’s DIG Airgas, it structured a deal-contingent hedge across onshore and offshore won.
The bank also integrated its transactional FX offering with BlackRock’s Aladdin platform, putting its hedging capabilities directly into asset managers’ workflows and marking an important evolution in FX-as-a-service at Deutsche Bank.
“We are seeing growing interest in European assets among global clients,” says Stergiou. “As a gateway to Europe, we are uniquely positioned to help clients access Europe’s growing public and private markets.”
Clients increasingly want a European partner with global reach. In 2025, Deutsche Bank offered them liquidity when it mattered most, solutions few rivals could structure and the balance sheet to support both.
