BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and his deputy regularly discussed strategic options for big banks with Deutsche Bank, Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper cited a paper from the Finance Ministry as saying.
The discussions between the minister and his deputy regularly included "strategic options of the institutes and evaluations by the leadership of the finance ministry."
Asked to evaluate possible merger plans between Commerzbank and other lenders, one of Germany's deputy finance ministers wrote on Jan. 10 that the German government was open to all commercially viable options, the newspaper said.
A spokesman for the Finance Ministry had no immediate comment. Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Commerzbank wasn't immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by Michelle Martin and Tom Sims; Editing by Joseph Nasr)
