US bank regulators have yet to complete their separate inquiry into the trading losses at Allfirst.

"We are looking very carefully at what happened and why and we are also looking very carefully at the Ludwig report and looking for the lessons learned from it," said a spokeswoman for the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, Virginia which is conducting an investigation alone with Maryland finance authorities.

A number of personnel were still on the case, the spokeswoman said. The FBI inquiry into Mr Rusnak is proceding slowly and sources close to the inquiry said that any criminal charges could be many weeks, if not months, away.