Both Commerzbank and HypoVereinsbank have had more success in building direct banks than Deutsche or Dresdner.
It may favour a link between Dresdner and HypoVereinsbank, as it owns a fifth of both.
Likewise, HypoVereinsbank, Germany's second-largest bank after Deutsche, may consider floating shares in its Direkt Anlage Bank.
HypoVereinsbank, for example, says that sub-investment-grade loans actually account for less than 30% of its North American book.
One possibility is that Allianz presses it back into talks with Munich-based HypoVereinsbank, which is also part-owned by the insurer.
Across the border in Germany, there has been a two-year calm since the merger of two big Bavarian banks into HypoVereinsbank.
How quickly can HypoVereinsbank recover, now that a line has been drawn?
Another possibility, egos permitting, is a deal with HypoVereinsbank, another Allianz holding.
For instance, Allianz and Munich Re, two German insurers, still own as much as 25% of each other's shares and both have a stake in HypoVereinsbank, a Bavarian bank.
Others, said to be older hands, would prefer a merger with HypoVereinsbank, which replaced Dresdner as Germany's second-largest bank when it was formed from the merger of two Bavarian banks.
Merging has proved hard enough for banks from the same country with vaguely similar internal cultures: witness recent bust-ups at America's newly formed Citigroup and at the equally new HypoVereinsbank, based in Munich.
Mr Kohlhaussen has a tendency to balk at headline-grabbing deals, even at the last minute: in 1996, he pulled out of a merger with Bayerische Vereinsbank (now HypoVereinsbank) days before it was due to be announced.
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