There is hardly an authority in Germany that has had to endure more ridicule in recent months than the Bafin. The German financial supervisory authority blatantly failed in the Wirecard accounting scandal, on the one hand because it ignored warnings about fraud in the billions for too long, and on the other hand because it did not carry out its supervisory duties energetically enough. Authority chief Felix Hufeld finally had to leave after it became known that Bafin employees – completely legally, by the way – had gambled with Wirecard shares in their free time. The agency reported an employee in January 2021 on suspicion of insider trading. The rules for these internal financial transactions have subsequently been tightened.
But not everyone in the authority wants to put up with the ban on gamblers. In a letter to Finance Secretary Jörg Kukies, the chairman of the Bafin staff council, Andreas Wolter, called for “appropriate financial compensation” for all employees concerned for the “considerable restrictions on asset accumulation and pension provision,” reports the Handelsblatt. One may wonder about this demand, because the pensions of German civil servants are generally considered adequate. Sure, they get less money than with European authorities. But also for the German supervisor: keep your eyes open when choosing a career.
Now there are certainly employees at Bafin who do a good job, as it is called in modern German, and who would still not get the idea of making demands for “compensation” right now. But the staff council obviously thinks it deserves it. You should know the following: After the Wirecard bankruptcy, the Green politician Sven Giegold publicly called for all scandals to be reported that the Bafin Not uncovered. “The gruesome list,” as Giegold tweeted, grew to 71 cases, including the banks IKB, WestLB and HRE, whose mentioning still causes anger and head shaking in many people to this day. In short: Bafin’s records of activities in its almost 20-year history are not a good argument for privileges.
There is no reason for that either. On the one hand, Bafin employees are prohibited from trading in financial derivatives and, on the other hand, trading in securities from companies that are supervised by the authorities. These are reasonable limitations for a work environment where there is a lot of inside knowledge about financial institutions. These regulations are international practice for supervisory authorities. In addition, the Bafin can still approve exceptions if it sees no conflict of interest. Nevertheless, it is bullied: “We consider the current state of regulation within the Bafin to be unsatisfactory and constitutionally questionable,” says the staff council’s letter. Many Bafin employees had the impression “that the bans are intended to be a punishment for the Wirecard scandal”. Yes, you can’t rule it out.