2023-07-13 23:05:58
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) is now also investigating secretly at banks and savings banks. In the third quarter of 2022, she started her second campaign with test purchases from banks and savings banks and once again found deficiencies in investment advice. “There is still room for improvement,” said Christian Bock, head of the consumer protection department and at the same time Bafin’s consumer protection officer.
Especially with the mandatory information, there is a considerable problem. On the other hand, things are going quite well when it comes to querying customer-specific sustainability preferences. “But the result is not perfect here either,” summarizes Bock. It was the second time that Bafin had carried out “mystery shopping”. Test purchases were made for the first time in June 2021.
100 test purchases at 16 institutes
However, the supervisory authority no longer considers this “pilot” to be representative due to the low range of 36 test purchases at twelve institutions. The successor, on the other hand, was designed much more broadly. “This time we tested 16 institutes throughout Germany and had a total of 100 test purchases carried out,” explained Bock.
From his point of view, the recent “mystery shopping” has produced a mixed picture. There were also good results, such as the query on sustainability preferences that has been mandatory since August 2022. In some points, however, the institutes are significantly worse off when it comes to investment advice than they were two years ago.
Worse than in the first test purchase campaign
In the most recent test purchase campaign, the undercover Bafin investigators appeared as new customers – in two age groups, on the one hand those of the 35 to 50 year olds and on the other hand those of the over 60 year olds. In 40 percent of the investment consultations, the mystery buyers did not receive a suitability statement and in 67 percent no ex-ante cost information, although both are required by law. During the pilot campaign in summer 2021, no suitability declaration was issued for 22 percent of the test purchases and no ex-ante cost information for 19 percent.
However, the Bafin admits that no order was placed in any of the investment advice meetings. “So we cannot completely rule out that the missing mandatory information would still have been handed over if the consultation had ended with an order being placed,” added Bock.
Franz Nestler Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 4 Dennis Kremer Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 6 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 2
The supervisors rate the query of sustainability preferences as encouraging. That was the case in 87 percent of the test purchases. In addition, the mystery shoppers found no signs of age discrimination. The pattern of errors was similar in both age groups. The supervisors rate the willingness of the affected institutions to critically question and adjust their processes as positive. They will monitor implementation and plan further “mystery shopping” campaigns.
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