Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, yesterday posted a second-quarter net profit of €1.2 billion, up from €1.1 billion in the same period a year earlier.

The improvement was in part the result of consolidated activities from new acquisitions and sharply lower quarterly provisions for credit losses, which plunged from €1 billion to €243 million, a statement said.

Meanwhile, the bank's private and business client segment delivered its best quarterly result since the peak of the financial crisis, Deutsche Bank noted.

"This demonstrates the strength of our diversified business portfolio," the statement quoted bank chairman Josef Ackermann as saying.

Net revenues for the banking group slipped in the second quarter to €7.2 billion from €7.9 billion in the same period of 2009.

That was partly due to charges of around €270 million on commercial paper activities, others of €124 million on gambling properties and net mark-down of €57 million on other assets, the statement said.

For the first six months of 2010, Deutsche Bank reported revenues of €16.2 billion, up from €15.2 billion in 2009. The bank said it had core capital equivalent to 11.3 per cent of total assets.

In stress tests conducted on 91 major European banks, the required ratio was six per cent when taking into account a hypothetical economic recession along with sharp losses on loans and investments in stocks and government bonds.