Halfway through his four-year turnaround plan, negative interest rates and competition keep eroding profitability, even as Mr Zielke can point to the jump in customer numbers and lending volumes as signs of progress. Five weeks of talks with Deutsche Bank to build a larger, more competitive bank through a merger collapsed last month, fuelling speculation that another bidder for Commerzbank may come forward. "We were on a standalone basis before the merger talks, we are on a standalone basis right now and I wouldn't necessarily see why just the failure of a merger attempt is questioning the standalone strategy," chief financial officer Stephan Engels said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. "Having said that, we all know that there is the discussion about consolidation in Europe." Commerzbank fell 0.94 per cent at 2.45pm in Frankfurt trading, after gaining as much as 1.3 per cent earlier.