The majority of them are universal banks each covering a broad spectrum of banking activities. Compared to other European countries, for example  BIS Review 28/2005  3  Netherlands or France where the five largest credit institutions amount to 84% and 47% of total assets in the national market, the German corresponding figure is 25%.
At the other end of the spectrum there are more than 2000 German banks covering only 20% of the market. What does this mean with regard to the implementation of Basel II? The main conclusions are twofold: First, for level playing field reasons Basel II will be made available for all banks, not only for the internationally active ones.