2023-09-04 19:52:48
The Bafin took its time on Monday: it was not until 6 p.m., after the stock market closed, that it commented on the Postbank case. The Deutsche Bank subsidiary has been attracting attention for months due to its miserable customer service. It is particularly striking that the institute does not manage to provide customers with prompt access to accounts that have been released again after attachments. The North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center has lodged a supervisory complaint against the Postbank with the financial services supervisory authority and has asked the authority to take “urgent action”.
The Bafin is not that far yet, but the mood in the authority seems to be changing. In a public statement, the Bafin announces that it will examine “whether there are deficiencies in the institution that are relevant to supervision”. The Bafin only rarely comments publicly on individual companies, most recently at Gamestop and Trade Republic. The background may also be that the authority itself is literally being overwhelmed with complaints. A spokesman for the authorities did not want to say exactly how many there are. In the environment of the Bonn authority, however, there is talk of a “high four-digit number”.
This clearly shows the extent of the distortions at the Deutsche Bank subsidiary. Because only a small part of the duped customers complains directly to the financial supervisory authority, many do not know about this possibility. In the meantime, however, there are so many that the Bafin can no longer keep up with the individual processing of the complaints, as it admits.
The expectations of the supervisor
The focus of financial supervision is not only the delayed release of accounts after the end of the garnishment, but all aspects of Postbank’s poor customer service. “Bafin expects the companies it supervises to offer their services with as few disruptions as possible. This includes, among other things, the availability of online banking so that customers can carry out their banking transactions at any time. In addition, the institutes must comply with the relevant statutory deadlines for the protection of customers, such as the setting up of accounts for protection against seizure and the adjustment of the seizure exemption limits. In addition, the institutes must be able to process customer orders within a reasonable period of time, for example in the case of seizure and estate matters.
At the same time, the Bonn authority, which says it has been in contact with Deutsche Bank for a long time, refers customers who have suffered financial damage to the courts, since only “collective consumer protection” is their responsibility.
sanction is still pending
Whether and if so what measures the authority will take against the Deutsche Bank subsidiary is left open by the Bafin. It would be conceivable to restrict business activities by forbidding Postbank from accepting new customers. The Bafin imposed this sanction on the neobank N26, for example. The deployment of a special overseer is also a tool available to overseers.
In any case, Deutsche Bank can give Postbank customers little hope of an early solution to the problems. “We are working with various measures to shorten the processing time in the affected areas in order to meet the justified expectations of our customers. Among other things, we have significantly increased the number of service employees.”
A comment by Archibald Preuschat Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 62 Archibald Preuschat Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 63 A comment by Archibald Preuschat Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 63
In the environment of the financial supervision one can meanwhile not yet recognize that the measures taken are also fruitful, the FAZ learned. And also in Frankfurt financial circles one does not believe that the Postbank will get its problems under control in the month that has just started.
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