Frankfurt - IKB, the first German bank to be caught up in the US credit crisis, needs billions of euros more from the German government to survive, financial sources said Thursday.

IKB needed a costly bail-out in 2007 after investing in toxic US debt. Last year, after a huge injection of state aid, it was sold to a US investor, but has come back to haunt Berlin again.

The sources said IKB had applied to SoFFin, the Frankfurt-based government agency set up to rescue shaky banks, for 7 billion euros (10 billion dollars) in aid and talks were well advanced.

SoFFin earlier extended guarantees worth 5 billion euros to keep IKB afloat. IKB mainly lends to businesses.

KfW, Germany's federal reconstruction bank, took IKB over and plugged the gaps before selling IKB to a US private equity company, Lone Star, in mid-2008.

That crisis came before two much bigger German banks, Commerzbank and Hypo Real Estate, had to be brought under state control to save them. (dpa)