President’s comments
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Sparkasse closure is not over yet
Sparkasse logo (archive).
Photo: dpa / Soeren Stache
Frankfurt The closure of Sparkasse branches is not over yet. This is what Sparkasse President Helmut Schluys says. However, from one point of view, branches still have a future.
Sparkasse President Helmut Schleweis expects a further reduction in the number of branches. “There are still branches that are fading, especially small ones,” Helmut Schluys, head of the German Savings Bank and the Giro Association (DSGV), Helmut Schluys, said on Monday at a banking conference for “Börsen-Zeitung”. “But I think we’ll stay nationally,” he added.
The branch as a place to deal with day to day banking is less and less demanded. As a point of contact and a place for personal advice, however, it tends to gain importance again. This is why savings banks may have fewer locations but are better equipped.
Financial houses have recently closed more and more branches. One of the reasons is that in the context of digitization they increasingly lack customers without prior reservation. In addition, in view of the cost pressure caused by the fierce competition, they have to save. Last year, according to Bundesbank, the number of branches of savings banks, including Landesbanken, decreased by 679 to 8,528.
Schluys has expressed himself critically on the topic of European Deposit Insurance, known in the professional world as “EDIS”. “We continue to routinely reject the full exchange of deposit insurance funds in any container in Europe,” he noted. A solution to European deposit insurance can only be found if the interests of the big banks are aligned with those of the savings and cooperative banks. “We are happy to participate in such discussions,” Schlues said.
In Germany, the EU deposit insurance project is highly controversial. Critics fear, among other things, that German savers will be held liable if banks in southern Europe, for example, run into trouble.
