In the current discussion on the restructuring of the European banking sector, the introduction of a banking systems with separation of commercial and investment banking is being thoroughly analyzed. A banking system with separation of commercial and investment banking is a banking system with two parts in which retail bank activities are legally and economically separated from investment bank activities. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of this type of banking system, to question the underlying arguments for their implementation and to present consequences of a potential implementation in Germany.