Reuters reported that Germany's DVB Bank warned its 2017 pretax return on equity would likely fall short of its expected range of minus 3 percent to plus 3 percent due to high risk costs in its shipping and offshore financing portfolios.
It said on Friday it was also likely to miss its forecasts for cost-income ratio and Economic Value Added.
Germany was one of the world's main centres of global ship financing before the 2008 financial crisis, and the five German banks with the closest links to the shipping industry still have around 80 billion euros ($91.4 billion) on loan to the sector.