The quality of German financial services was not the best last year. BaFin received significantly more complaints. One reason was the problems at Postbank.
The financial regulator BaFin received more complaints about banks, insurers and securities service providers last year than ever since the authority published the figures. As the financial services regulator announced, consumer complaints rose by 61.8 percent to 38,233 cases in 2023. The main reason for this are errors and omissions in customer service, according to BaFin.
Bank customers were particularly dissatisfied. The numbers here have been steadily increasing since 2018. The majority complained about disruptions in customer service, problems with account terminations, annual tax certificates issued late or impermissible fees in building savings contracts.
Postbank in the focus of complaints
“A significant proportion of the complaints about disruptions in private customer service at banks were caused by a financial institution,” explained Christian Bock, head of BaFin’s consumer protection department. He did not mention the name of the bank, but it is obvious that it was Postbank.
BaFin reprimanded the institute and its parent company Deutsche Bank in September due to ongoing problems with customer service. The reason was that Postbank moved to a new Deutsche Bank platform. A special representative has been monitoring progress on behalf of the authority since October. The problems at Postbank have now been resolved, Deutsche Bank said. “As recently announced, at the end of March we managed the backlog in customer-critical processes, which were also the subject of BaFin’s orders, and are continuing to work on improvements,” said a bank spokesman.
Damage and Accident insurer often difficult to reach
According to BaFin, insurance customers complained primarily about slow claims processing and slow payment of insurance benefits. “Property and casualty insurers were also noticeably often difficult to reach by telephone,” reported Bock. Customer service has often been criticized by securities service providers. Customers complained about long response times, inadequate response letters or difficulties in connection with portfolio transfers.
Another reason for the increase in complaints to BaFin is that financial supervision is now much better known among consumers, said Bock. “One of the reasons for this is that we report transparently about our measures. But we have also imposed some high fines and announced the appointment of special representatives.”
The BaFin representative emphasized how important the complaints are for the authority to track down grievances: “If we have indications that consumer protection regulations are being violated and many consumers are affected, we check whether and what measures we can take.”