Wiesbaden, Germany  - A further German banking group, the mortgage lender Aareal, asked Sunday to be partly nationalized by the German government as it struggles to cope with the financial crisis.

In a statement from its head office in the city of Wiesbaden, Aareal said it had obtained an equity injection of 525 million euros (682 million dollars) and up to 4 billion euros in cover from federal loan guarantees, as set out in German bail-out legislation.

Aareal Bank AG affirmed that had completed 2008 without any overall loss. It said the request for help was purely precautionary. The aid had been promised by Soffin, the German government's Frankfurt-based bail-out agency. dpa