"At no time was an investigator prevented from escalating activity identified as potentially suspicious. Furthermore, suggestion that anyone was reassigned or fired in an effort to quash concerns relating to any client is categorically false," Deutsche Bank said in a statement on Monday.

Citing five current and former Deutsche Bank employees, the New York Times reported on Sunday that the transactions, some of which involved Trump's now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity.

Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes, according to the newspaper.

Deutsche Bank were down 1.5% in pre-market trading in Frankfurt.

(Reporting by Arno Schuetze and Tom Sims, editing by Riham Alkousaa)