Bafin’s difficult path to independence

The question of independence has haunted many financial and regulatory experts since the Wirecard scandal. This is all the more true after it became clear in September that Mark Bransons had not signed an open letter in which 25 heads of European central banks and supervisory authorities urged EU Finance Commissioner Mairead McGuinness for the full and timely implementation of strict capital rules. Branson is actually known to support these demands in terms of content.

“It is crucial that the financial supervisory authority acts independently of political influence,” emphasized Giegold. The interaction between Bafin and the Ministry of Finance during the Wirecard disaster left a bad aftertaste.

Kukies speaks of handing over the “individual elements to the Bafin”

Finance State Secretary Kukies seems to be aware of how sensitive the issue of Bafin independence is – including the signaling effect that arises from the fact that the intermediate status of the restructuring is presented jointly by the Federal Ministry of Finance and Bafin. “We accompanied the process very intensively at the beginning, but we are now gradually handing over the individual elements to the Bafin,” says Kukies in his opening statements. “We will then largely withdraw in December, when the project is completed.”

The Secretary of State for Finance then only answers all further questions on the subject of independence in the background – he does not want to be quoted. After all, Bafin President Branson takes a position on this and can also be quoted in public. “There has to be total independence in operational supervision. I experienced that too, ”he says. When it comes to international standard setting and regulation, a certain amount of cooperation is “normal”.

Open letters apparently fall into the first category. In an interview with the Handelsblatt, Branson had already admitted: “I support the demands of the authors of the letter. In retrospect, it was a mistake not to have signed the letter because it sent the wrong signal. ”The Bafin now has a clear position on this question, which differs from its position at the beginning of this year. In other words: his predecessor was against a tough pace, he is for it.

Branson reiterated this in a press conference. You don’t have to sign everything you support as long as you don’t sign something you don’t support. But “it is regrettable that the missing signature led to confusion”. From his point of view, however, the fuss about the letter has one good thing: “The confusion has meant that the Bafin’s position is now all the more clear,” he says.
Budget should remain stable.

Branson also has a positive message ready for the financial sector: The Bafin budget, which is fed by contributions from the financial companies it controls, should not increase any further. “At the end of this project we will have a budget of around 500 million euros and almost 3,000 people. That’s enough to run modern supervision, ”he says. “It is my clear goal to get by with the available resources. In order to reinvest in new challenges, we then have to become more efficient elsewhere. “

In the spring there was considerable turmoil in the supervisory authority’s board of directors over the question of how many additional positions the Bafin should receive for its old and new tasks. In the end, 155 new jobs were approved.

More: This is what the Bafin boss said in his first interview: “The greatest economic risk is the interest rate environment”