Germany's antitrust regulator, theBundeskartellamt, said March 29 that it approved the of and .

The regulator added that it had alsoapproved the merger in 2009, but at the time the two banks decided againstcompleting it.

Handelsblatt reportedMarch 30 that 90 WGZ Bank middle-management executives wrote to the bank'sboard March 18 to express their concerns over merger-related and the status of WGZ Bank —which has total assets of €89.8 billion compared with DZ Bank's €408.3 billion— within the merged company.

However, according to the newspaper,the boards of both banks are confident that the merger will be completed, witha DZ Bank spokesman reportedly saying that the merger agreement will be signed April12.