Commerzbank has become the third big German bank to agree to join the German Holocaust fund, which aims to resolve lawsuits filed in New York by survivors and their heirs, a source close to the talks said yesterday.

"More companies over the coming weeks will be joining, and one will be Commerzbank," the source, who declined to be named, said. Along with Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank, who already have joined the fund, Commerzbank was one of the country's top financial institutions during the second World War.

A Commerzbank spokesman in Frankfurt, commenting on the statement, said: "Yes. We can confirm this."

One lawsuit filed in New York against a number of German companies, including Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, Dresdner Bank, its third-largest, and Commerzbank, one of the top five, charged that members of the banks' boards of directors also were directors of companies that used slave labour.

Counting Commerzbank as one of the participants brings the total number of the German companies that have agreed to pay into the new fund to 13.