GETTY Deutsche Bank has been accused of refusing to hand over customer's gold

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Germany's biggest bank has been accused of breaking the terms of bond sales by financial experts. The trouble-hit bank is reportedly currently contemplating a merger with Germany's other mega-bank, Commerzbank. Clients who have invested in the exchange-traded commodity "Xetra-Gold" have said they are having problems with the bank, according to German analytic website Godmode-Trader. Xetra-Gold is a bond on the Deutsche Börse commodities market, and Deutsche Bank is a designated sponsor.

GETTY The gold was bought as bonds but Xetera Gold said for every scrap bought physical gold was kept

When purchasing the commodity in the virtual sphere, customers are told for every scrap of the precious metal they buy, the same amount of physical gold exists. On the website, Xetra-Gold says its clients have the right for physical delivery of the gold when they please. But customers have said they have asked for it - and have been denied by Deutsche Bank. The physical gold is reportedly held in custody for the issuer in the Frankfurt vaults of Clearstream Banking AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Börse. On its website, Xetra-Gold states: "In order to facilitate the delivery of physical gold, the issuer holds a further limited amount of gold on an unallocated weight account with Umicore AG & Co."

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Godmode Trader quoted a German who “sought physical delivery of his holdings of Xetra-Gold". It stated: "For this he approached, as instructed by the German Börse document, his principal bank, Deutsche Bank." However, he was told that “the service” was no longer available for "reasons of business policy". It is not yet clear whether other banks are still delivering gold through Xetra. Xetra-Gold, which claims to manage assets of £2.95billion says its holdings amount to over 85 tonnes of gold. It states: “At the same time, the number of deliveries of physical gold has risen to nearly 900, at a total volume of over four tonnes". According to the World Gold Council, Germany has the world's second largest gold reserves at 3,381 metric tonnes. Recently, the government was hit by public backlash for keeping most of the country's gold reserves abroad.

GETTY Deutsche Bank is reported to be contemplating a merger with Germany's other mega-bank, Commerzbank

The news will spark more fears over the German economy as the country's biggest bank has this year faced plunging share prices and thousands of job cuts. Earlier this year Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's Finance Minister, claimed he had "no concerns" about Deutsche Bank's share prices. And co-CEO John Cryan insisted: "Deutsche Bank remains absolutely rock-solid, given our strong capital and risk position." But financial expert Max Keiser has poured cold water on their claims, saying the bank is "technically insolvent" and runs a "ponzi scheme". Speaking on Russia Today's Keiser Report, he added: "The bank needs to go out of business, because they are not solvent. "But politicians, including Schaeuble, allow for financial engineering products to come onto the market that mask insolvency. "It's dead, it's insolvent, the bank is dead... This is a dead bank walking." The majority of Germany's gold held in country is being stored in Frankfurt.

GETTY Deutsche Bank reports it still holds more than 1,347 metric tons of gold in New York alone