The financial regulator Bafin has appointed a special representative for the parent company Deutsche Bank because of the problems at Postbank. This is intended to ensure that Deutsche Bank “quickly and completely eliminates” the restrictions in customer service at Postbank and the construction finance provider DSL Bank, as the supervisory authority announced. “Bafin has taken this measure to protect the collective interests of consumers.” The special representative will focus on ensuring that orders from customers are processed within a reasonable period of time and that customer orders that have not yet been processed are processed quickly. The supervisory authority had already publicly reprimanded the institute.
A spokesman for Deutsche Bank said the institution would work closely with regulators and the special representative “to meet the expectations of our regulators and customers affected by the inconvenience as quickly as possible.” Deutsche Bank is making progress in improving processing times at Postbank. According to the information, it has deployed around 400 additional employees in customer service. Several 100 more full-time employees are to be added gradually in October.
Complaints from Postbank customers had increased in recent months, especially in connection with an IT change. Since Easter 2022, data from twelve million Postbank customers and seven million Deutsche Bank customers in Germany have been brought together on a common platform. There have also recently been problems with accounts in which indebted people can protect assets from seizure, as well as with the payment of construction financing at the subsidiary DSL.
Deutsche Bank boss Christian Sewing apologized for the problems. “There is nothing to sugarcoat the situation. Overall, this is a situation for which we can only apologize,” said Sewing recently. He expects that critical issues such as seizure protection accounts will return to normal operations in the course of October. He sees a similar trend with loan disbursements. “Overall, in order to reduce all backlogs, we need not only the third quarter, but also the fourth quarter,” said the CEO.