In that respect, the company can be seen as a financial conglomerate and, as with any conglomerate, various businesses go in different directions.

The group argues that regulatory changes had left it too expensive and complex to run in its previous form - an unwieldy financial conglomerate that many investors found puzzling.

The company sought to launch itself on a truly national scale, replacing its allfinanz model with a new financial conglomerate strategy.

This allowed the bank to operate as a stand-alone subsidiary of a larger financial conglomerate that also owned other non-banking financial services subsidiaries.

Financial conglomerates became major beneficiaries of the liberalized economy and the flood of foreign bank loans.