It is a public corporation majority-owned by the federal states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt with its head office in Hanover and branches in Braunschweig and Magdeburg.

NORD/LB maintains branch offices in all major financial and trading centers, including London (since 1985), Singapore (since 2004) and New York City (since 1991).

[5] Following the crisis, it joined peers such as HSH Nordbank, Commerzbank, Deutsche Hypothekenbank and KfW in taking large writedowns and boosting capital buffers against the risk of shipping loans turning sour.

Similar to other public lenders, it opted for additional support from its regional state owners instead of drawing on help from SoFFin, the federal government's bail-out scheme.

[8] As a result, it took full control of its loss-making Bremer Landesbank (BLB) unit, which suffered particularly from a weak shipping market that was chipping away at its capital.

[9] Between 2016 and 2017, NORD/LB engaged in – ultimately unsuccessful – negotiations on selling a $1.5 billion portfolio of shipping loans to KKR Credit and a sovereign wealth fund.

[26] In recent years, NORD/LB has developed a range of partners to bundle loan portfolios and place them with investors, working with insurers Talanx and ERGO Group, Bankhaus Lampe and Bavarian pension fund Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK).

The collection today comprises about 3,000 artworks, still with an emphasis on postwar art, including Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sol LeWitt, Jeff Koons, Jannis Kounellis and Jörg Immendorff, among others.