The German Cooperative Financial Group, german: Genossenschaftliche FinanzGruppe Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken, sometimes referred to in English as "Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Cooperative Financial Network", is a major
cooperative banking
Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world.
Cooperative banking, as discussed here, includes retail banking car ...
network in Germany that includes local banks named Volksbanken ("people's banks") and Raiffeisenbanken ("Raiffeisen banks"), the latter in tribute to 19th-century cooperative movement pioneer
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (30 March 1818 – 11 March 1888) was a German mayor and cooperative pioneer. Several credit union systems and cooperative banks have been named after Raiffeisen, who pioneered rural credit unions.
Life
Friedrich Wilhe ...
. The Cooperative Group represents one of the three "pillars" of Germany's banking sector, the other two being, respectively, the of public banks, and the commercial banking sector represented by the
Association of German Banks
The Association of German Banks (german: Bundesverband deutscher Banken) is the association of private banks in Germany and a key lobby group for Germany's financial sector. In the traditional 3-pillar system of the German banking industry, this r ...
.
The
Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken (BVR) is the nationwide representative body of the Cooperative Financial Group. It operates under the
Deutscher Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisenverband
The Deutsche Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisenverband e.V. (DGRV) is the Co-operative federation for German Co-operatives.
Since 1972, the federation has been based in Berlin. Berlin. It came out from the union of the two co-operative central ass ...
, the umbrella organization of the German cooperative movement.
History
Founders' era
In 1843, the first German cooperative bank was created by 50 inhabitants of
Öhringen
Öhringen ( East Franconian: ''Ähringe'') is the largest town in Hohenlohe (district) in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in southwest Germany, near Heilbronn. Öhringen is on the railline to Schwäbisch Hall and Crailsheim.
With a population o ...
in the
Kingdom of Württemberg
The Kingdom of Württemberg (german: Königreich Württemberg ) was a German state that existed from 1805 to 1918, located within the area that is now Baden-Württemberg. The kingdom was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which existe ...
, who named it the (“private savings and lending bank of Öhringen”) – it still exists as the .
In the later 1840s, economist
Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch
Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, also Hermann Schulze, (29 August 1808 – 29 April 1883) was a German politician and economist. He was responsible for the organizing of the world's first credit unions. He was also co-founder of the German Progre ...
started organizing the creation of cooperatives by local communities of craftsmen or farmers in his home town of
Delitzsch
Delitzsch (; Slavic: ''delč'' or ''delcz'' for hill) is a town in Saxony in Germany, 20 km north of Leipzig and 30 km east of Halle (Saale). With 24,850 inhabitants at the end of 2015, it is the largest town in the district of Nordsa ...
, in the Prussian
Province of Saxony
The Province of Saxony (german: link=no, Provinz Sachsen), also known as Prussian Saxony () was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the Free State of Prussia from 1816 until 1944. Its capital was Magdeburg.
It was formed by the merg ...
, and promoted national legislation to encourage it. The first such venture, a or raw materials purchasing association, was created by a group of shoemakers in 1849.
The next year in 1850, Schulze-Delitzsch created another association for advance payments to craftsmen in Delitzsch.
In 1859, Schulze-Delitzsch convened the first group meeting of cooperatives or in
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
and founded a central bureau of cooperative societies (german: Centralkorrespondenzbureau, which he ran from 1861, which in 1864 became the general association of German commercial and economic cooperatives based on self-help (german: Allgemeiner Verband der auf Selbsthilfe beruhenden Deutschen Erwerbs- und Wirtschaftsgenossenschaften. Also in 1864, Schulze-Delitzsch led the creation of the bank Soergel, Parrisius & Co. in Berlin, also known as , to serve as central financial institution for the .
Meanwhile in 1864,
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (30 March 1818 – 11 March 1888) was a German mayor and cooperative pioneer. Several credit union systems and cooperative banks have been named after Raiffeisen, who pioneered rural credit unions.
Life
Friedrich Wilhe ...
fostered the creation of the first rural cooperative bank, the (“lending association of Heddesdorf”), in the village of near
Neuwied
Neuwied () is a town in the north of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, capital of the District of Neuwied. Neuwied lies on the east bank of the Rhine, 12 km northwest of Koblenz, on the railway from Frankfurt am Main to Cologne. Th ...
, in
Rhenish Prussia between
Koblenz
Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary.
Koblenz was established as a Roman military post by Drusus around 8 B.C. Its nam ...
and
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
. Raiffeisen considered joining Schulze-Delitzsch’s initiative, but eventually concluded that the needs of rural communities were different from the ones of town craftsmen which were Schulze-Delitzsch’s focus. In 1876, Raiffeisen created a financial institution in Neuwied to serve the network, which in 1926 was renamed . In 1877, he created the Bar Association of Rural Cooperatives german: Anwaltschaftsverbandes ländlicher Genossenschaften (Neuwied), the first national body for his rural cooperative movement. In 1910, that association’s headquarters was relocated from Neuwied to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, and in 1917 it was renamed the General Association of German Raiffeisen Cooperatives (german: Generalverband der deutschen Raiffeisengenossenschaften).
[
In 1872, another social reformer, , created an agricultural purchasers’ association german: landwirtschaftlichen Konsumverein in Friedberg, ]Grand Duchy of Hesse
The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine (german: link=no, Großherzogtum Hessen und bei Rhein) was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The Grand Duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 18 ...
. A few months later, 15 other rural purchasing cooperatives joined it to form the Association of Hessian Agricultural Purchasing Associations (german: Verband der hessischen landwirtschaftlichen Konsumvereine. In July 1883, Haas expanded his initiative into a national body, the Union of German Agricultural Cooperatives (german: Vereinigung deutscher landwirtschaftlicher Genossenschaften) in Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse ...
, which was later renamed the National Association of German Agricultural Cooperatives (german: Reichsverband der deutschen landwirtschaftlichen Genossenschaften) and moved to Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
in 1913. Early on, the cooperatives in Haas's network in Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are ...
used in Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, a commercial bank, for wholesale financial services, but in 1883 they opted under Haas's leadership to create their own central institution, the in Darmstadt, which DZ Bank
DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's la ...
now views as its origin story. For national business, Haas's network then established a relationship with the in Berlin, but grew dissatisfied with it and in 1902 founded their own national financial institution, the in Darmstadt.[
In 1895, the Prussian government in Berlin and its finance minister Johannes von Miquel fostered the establishment of , also known as the , to facilitate funding of local agricultural cooperative banking throughout Prussia, with capital provided by the Prussian state. Helped by new legislation on limited liability, the number of cooperative banks in Prussia doubled between 1895 and 1900.][
In 1901, initiated a second network of professional cooperatives alongside the one created a half-century earlier by Schulze-Delitzsch, represented by the in ]Osnabrück
Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population ...
. As a consequence, there were four separate networks of cooperative banks by the start of the 20th century.[
]
Restructuring and consolidation in the 20th century
In the late 19th century, the was criticized by Volksbanken for its commercialism and largely unsuccessful business expansion outside of the cooperative space. In 1904, its losses led it to merge into Dresdner Bank
Dresdner Bank AG was a German bank and was based in Frankfurt. It was one of Germany's largest banking corporations and was acquired by competitor Commerzbank in May 2009.
History
19th century
The Dresdner Bank was established on 12 Novembe ...
, which set up specialized departments in Berlin and Frankfurt to serve its cooperative clientele. In subsequent years, Haas's in turn went into distress and eventually an orderly liquidation in 1912, and the met the same fate in 1913. The Hessian cooperatives created a new institution, the as a substitute. In April 1920, Schulze-Delitzsch's and Korthaus's merged their respective organizations to form the (DGV), which became the national entity for all urban professional cooperative banks.[
In the later 1920s, economic hardship forced a similar merger between the two networks of agricultural cooperatives respectively founded by Raiffeisen and Haas, which on formed the ("e.V." stands for a registered association, german: eingetragener Verein). With around 36,000 member cooperatives and four million individual cooperators, it was the largest cooperative organization in the world. The was liquidated and substituted by regional entities of the . The was renamed the in 1932.][
In 1933, like other civil society organizations, the cooperative movement became the target of the Nazi government's ]Gleichschaltung
The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...
policy of eradicating diversity and dissent. The 's president Andreas Hermes
Andreas Hermes (16 July 1878 – 4 January 1964) was a German agricultural scientist and politician. In the Weimar Republic, he was a member of several governments, serving as minister of food/nutrition and minister of finance for the Catholic ...
was swiftly arrested and replaced by Nazi Richard Walther Darré
Richard Walther Darré (born Ricardo Walther Óscar Darré; 14 July 1895 – 5 September 1953) was one of the leading Nazi " blood and soil" () ideologists and served as Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture. As the National leader () fo ...
, and the Raiffeisen movement was incorporated into the Nazi agrarian movement, the Reichsnährstand
The ''Reichsnährstand'' or 'State Food Society', was a government body set up in Nazi Germany to regulate food production.
Foundation
The Reichsnährstand was founded by the Reichsnährstandsgesetz (decree) of 13 September 1933; it was led by R ...
. On , the DGV first formalized mutual protection and deposit guarantee arrangements for its member banks, allowing the BVR to claim in 2022 that "The protection scheme run by the Cooperative Financial Network is therefore the world's oldest exclusively privately financed deposit guarantee fund for banks." In 1939, Dresdner Bank phased out its cooperative-serving operations whose business was transferred to the , which thus became the sole national financial institution serving the cooperative banks. During World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, savings were directed towards investment in government bonds as part of the regime's policy of financial repression
Financial repression comprises "policies that result in savers earning returns below the rate of inflation" to allow banks to "provide cheap loans to companies and governments, reducing the burden of repayments." It can be particularly effective a ...
.[
At the end of the war, the found itself in the ]Soviet occupation zone
The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a ...
. In 1949, the cooperatives in West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
created a new central institution to replace it, the (DGK) in Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, with support from Hermes who had narrowly escaped execution by the Nazis in 1944 and was instrumental in reviving democratic life in the new West German environment.[ The DGK was located in a head office building am Taunustor 3, erected in phases in the 1950s on designs by , which after 1978 was used by ]Commerzbank
Commerzbank AG () is a major German bank operating as a universal bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. In the 2019 financial year, the bank was the second largest in Germany by the total value of its balance sheet. Founded in 1870 in Hambur ...
, as DGK's successor the DG Bank had moved to the nearby City-Haus
City-Haus is a 42-storey skyscraper in the Westend-Süd district of Frankfurt, Germany. It was constructed from 1971 to 1974 and designed by architects Johannes Krahn and Richard Heil. It was the tallest building in Frankfurt from 1974–197 ...
high-rise, and eventually demolished in 2011 to make way for the Taunusturm development. Meanwhile in 1948, the agricultural cooperatives in West Germany had formed the in Berlin as their new federal-level representative organization.[ In 1956, ]Union Investment
Union Investment (; formal name Union Asset Management Holding AG) is the investment arm of the DZ Bank Group and part of the cooperative financial services network. It was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Frankfurt.
Trading in open-end ...
was created in Frankfurt to provide asset management services to the network.
In the late 1960s, financial reform led to increased competition in the German banking sector, including with the Sparkassen
The ''Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe'' ("Savings Banks Financial Group") is a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany and in all of Europe. Its name refers to local government-controlled savings banks ...
, and encouraged the consideration of merger between the two national cooperative banking organizations, the and the . The negotiations were completed in 1972 with the creation of the Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken (BVR) in Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
. At the same time, many local cooperatives merged, and regional organizations were consolidated. In 1975, new federal legislation redefined the role of the DGK, renamed it DG Bank, and allowed it to gradually take over the Cooperative Group's regional financial institutions. The next year, DG Bank started developing an international network, with its first offices abroad established in New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
and Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
. In the mid-1980s the cooperative group's regional structures in Bavaria ran into financial difficulties, and were taken over by DG Bank. This triggered a debate on the structure of the group, either with two tiers (local and federal) or three (with an intermediate regional level). In December 1989, a compromise was adopted, known as the , which acknowledged the coexistence of two-tier and three-tier structures within the Cooperative Financial Group. In July 1990, with German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
, DG Bank assumed the role of central financial institution for the still existing and new in East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...
. In 1998, DG Bank was converted into a joint-stock company, and the cooperatives purchased the shares owned by the German federal government. In 2000, two of the remaining regional entities, (SGZ-Bank) in Frankfurt, a successor to the of Darmstadt, and (GZB-Bank) in Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...
merged to form GZ-Bank.[
]
21st century developments
In 2001, DG Bank and GZ-Bank merged to form DZ Bank
DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's la ...
(for ), headquartered in Frankfurt. In 2016, DZ Bank in turn absorbed WGZ Bank
The WGZ Bank (officially WGZ BANK AG Westdeutsche Genossenschafts-Zentralbank) was the umbrella organization of some 230 cooperative financial institutions in the Rhineland and in Westphalia.
Based in Düsseldorf, the company offers long-term real ...
() of Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...
, thus completing the Cooperative Group's transformation into a two-tier structure that had started in the 1980s.
File:Berlin, Am Zeughaus 1-2, Preussische Central-Genossenschafts-Casse.jpg, Building ''Am Zeughaus 2'' in Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
(right), from 1899 seat of the , and 1906 extension on ''Am Zeughaus 1'' (left); now offices of the Deutsches Historisches Museum
File:Gedenktafel Am Zeughaus 2 (Mitte) Preußische Central-Genossenschaftskasse.jpg, Plaque on the building ''Am Zeughaus 2''
File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F027090-0003, Bonn, Adenauer-Allee, Raiffeisen Zentralbank.jpg, Regional in Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
, Adenauerallee 121, photographed in 1968; now Bonn office of the Deutscher Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisenverband
The Deutsche Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisenverband e.V. (DGRV) is the Co-operative federation for German Co-operatives.
Since 1972, the federation has been based in Berlin. Berlin. It came out from the union of the two co-operative central ass ...
(DGRV)
File:Bonn-Gronau Adenauerallee 127 Raiffeisenhaus.jpg, in Bonn, Adenauerallee 127, next to the previous building and a stone's throw from the former Federal Chancellery, former head office (and now Bonn office) of the
File:2013-04-21 Schulze-Delitzsch-Haus, Heussallee 5, Bonn IMG 0087.jpg, , former seat of the and now Bonn office of the BVR
File:City-Haus I, Frankfurt, Northwest view 20170226 1.jpg, City-Haus
City-Haus is a 42-storey skyscraper in the Westend-Süd district of Frankfurt, Germany. It was constructed from 1971 to 1974 and designed by architects Johannes Krahn and Richard Heil. It was the tallest building in Frankfurt from 1974–197 ...
in Frankfurt, head office of DG Bank (1976-1993) and still part of the DZ Bank head office complex
File:Frankfurt Westend Tower.Süd.20130616.jpg, Westendstrasse 1
Westendstraße 1 is a 53-storey, skyscraper in the Westend-Süd district of Frankfurt, Germany. The structure was completed in 1993 and together with the nearby City-Haus, forms the headquarters of DZ Bank. In 1995 it won the "Best Building of ...
, head office of DG Bank (1993-2001) then of DZ Bank
DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's la ...
in Frankfurt, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) is an American architecture firm that provides architecture, interior, programming and master planning services for clients in both the public and private sectors. KPF is one of the largest architecture firms in ...
File:Bürogebäude am Potsdamer Platz 20150224 1.jpg, Building at Schellingstrasse 4 in Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, designed by Arata Isozaki
Arata Isozaki (磯崎 新, ''Isozaki Arata''; born 23 July 1931) is a Japanese architect, urban designer, and theorist from Ōita. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1986 and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019.
Biography
Isozaki was ...
and completed in 1997; current head office of the BVR and of the DGRV
File:DZ Bank Haus (Frank Gehry).jpg, DZ Bank building
The DZ Bank building (formerly DG Bank building) is an office, conference, and residential building located at Pariser Platz 3 in Berlin. It was designed by architect Frank Gehry and engineered by Hans Schober of Schlaich Bergermann & Partne ...
on Pariser Platz
Pariser Platz ( en, Paris Square) is a square in the historic center of Berlin, Germany, situated by the Brandenburg Gate at the end of the Unter den Linden. The square is named after the French capital of Paris to commemorate the anti-Napoleon A ...
, initially DG Bank's Berlin office designed by Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions.
His works are considered ...
and completed in 2000
File:Inside the DZ Bank building in Berlin.jpg, Atrium inside the DZ Bank building in Berlin
Group structure and operations
The Cooperative Group's entities, which are also directly or indirectly member institutions of the BVR, include:
* hundreds of local cooperative banks generally called ("cooperative bank"), ("people's bank"), ("united people's bank"), , or or ;
* 14 PSD Banks, cooperative banks whose name is an acronym for "post, savings and loan associations" (german: Post-, Spar- und Darlehnsvereine);
* 11 Sparda-Banks, cooperative banks whose name is a portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words[Regensburg
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the ...](_blank)
, , Bank im Bistum Essen, in Paderborn
Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...
, Pax-Bank
Pax-Bank eG is a German bank that focuses on Christian finance headquartered in Cologne. The bank states that is a german: Bank für Kirche und Caritas (Bank for the Church and Charities), a cooperative Catholic universal bank. Its members consis ...
in Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
, within , Steyler Bank in Sankt Augustin
Sankt Augustin ( Ripuarian: ''Sank Aujustin'') is a town in the Rhein-Sieg district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is named after the patron saint of the Divine Word Missionaries, Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430). The Missionaries e ...
, KD-Bank in Dortmund
Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...
, in Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
, in Bad Homburg
Bad Homburg vor der Höhe () is the district town of the Hochtaunuskreis, Hesse, on the southern slope of the Taunus mountains. Bad Homburg is part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area. The town's official name is ''Bad Homburg v.d.Höhe'', w ...
, and in Witten
Witten () is a city with almost 100,000 inhabitants in the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis (district) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Geography
Witten is situated in the Ruhr valley, in the southern Ruhr area.
Bordering municipalities
* Bochum
* Dortmun ...
;
* Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank
The Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank eG (ApoBank, German bank for pharmacists and physicians) is a cooperative bank headquartered in Düsseldorf.
Structure
The Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank is affiliated to the National Association of Germa ...
, the cooperative banks of German physicians and pharmacists, headquartered in Dusseldorf;
* BBBank
The BBBank eG (formerly ''Badische Beamtenbank'') is a German cooperative bank headquartered in Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg). It is solely focused on private banking. With total assets of almost 11 billion Euros and over 470,000 members the bank ...
, a cooperative private banking
Private banking is banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks and financial institutions primarily serving high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs)—defined as those with very high levels of income or sizable assets. A bank that ...
specialist in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
;
* in Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
.
* DZ Bank
DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's la ...
in Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, the group's central credit institution, which in turn owns cooperative mortgage banks Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall and in Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
and Münster
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...
, private banker in Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
, insurer in Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...
, liquidity manager in Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
, asset manager Union Investment
Union Investment (; formal name Union Asset Management Holding AG) is the investment arm of the DZ Bank Group and part of the cooperative financial services network. It was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Frankfurt.
Trading in open-end ...
in Frankfurt, financing specialist (formerly VR Leasing) in Eschborn
Eschborn () is a town in the Main-Taunus district, Hesse, Germany. It is part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area and has a population of 21,488 (2018). Eschborn is home to numerous corporations due to its proximity to Frankfurt and relatively ...
, and other specialized institutions.
Institutional Protection Scheme
The core financial structure of the Cooperative Financial Group is its Institutional Protection Scheme (IPS), a mutual support arrangement in accordance to Article 113(7) of the EU Capital Requirements Regulation
The Capital Requirements Regulation''(EU) No. 575/2013is an EU law that aims to decrease the likelihood that banks go insolvent. With the Credit Institutions Directive 2013 the Capital Requirements Regulation 2013 (CRR 2013) reflects Basel III r ...
. As of end-March 2022, the Cooperative IPS included a total of 781 entities.
As with the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe
The ''Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe'' ("Savings Banks Financial Group") is a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany and in all of Europe. Its name refers to local government-controlled savings banks ...
, the interventions of the Cooperative Group IPS are generally not made public. The International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
disclosed in 2016 that the IPS had provided support to member banks in two cases in 2011, for a total intervention amount of €114 million, and again in 2013 and 2014 for €11 million in each case.
National representation
The Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken (BVR) represents the Cooperative Financial Group nationally and before European institutions.
Supervision
The entities of the Cooperative Financial Group are separately supervised, unlike other cooperative groups with similar structures such as Groupe BPCE
Groupe BPCE (for Banque Populaire Caisse d'Epargne) is a major French banking group formed by the 2009 merger of two major retail banking groups, Groupe Caisse d'Épargne and Groupe Banque Populaire. As of 2021, it was France's fourth largest b ...
and Crédit Mutuel in France, OP Financial Group
OP Financial Group is one of the largest financial companies in Finland. It consists of 180 cooperative banks and their central organization. “OP” stands for “osuuspankki” in Finnish, literally meaning “cooperative bank”. The financi ...
in Finland, and Rabobank
Rabobank (; full name: ''Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.'') is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks (2019), a central organisation (Raboban ...
in the Netherlands, whose name also refers to Raiffeisen. As of early April 2022, DZ Bank
DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's la ...
, Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank
The Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank eG (ApoBank, German bank for pharmacists and physicians) is a cooperative bank headquartered in Düsseldorf.
Structure
The Deutsche Apotheker- und Ärztebank is affiliated to the National Association of Germa ...
and were designated as significant institutions under the Single Supervisory Mechanism
The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is the first pillar of the European banking union and is the legislative and institutional framework that grants the European Central Bank (ECB) a leading supervisory role over banks in the European Union ...
and thus directly supervised by the European Central Bank
The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the monetary Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important centra ...
(ECB), whereas the other banks within the group were supervised by BaFin
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (german: Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht, Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht) better known by its abbreviation BaFin is the financial regulatory authority for Germany. It ...
under the ECB's supervisory oversight. The ECB and BaFin
The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (german: Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht, Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht) better known by its abbreviation BaFin is the financial regulatory authority for Germany. It ...
work together on the assessment of the Cooperative IPS.
Deposit insurance
As a consequence of the EU Deposit Guarantee Scheme Directive (DGSD) and the broader policy of European Banking union
The banking union of the European Union is the transfer of responsibility for banking policy from the national to the EU level in several EU member states, initiated in 2012 as a response to the Eurozone crisis. The motivation for banking union w ...
, the BVR has set up a statutory deposit insurance
Deposit insurance or deposit protection is a measure implemented in many countries to protect bank depositors, in full or in part, from losses caused by a bank's inability to pay its debts when due. Deposit insurance systems are one component of ...
scheme, in addition to its pre-existing IPS and operated by a separate legal entity, (BVR-ISG). BVR-ISG is recognized as a deposit guarantee scheme under DGSD; it operates alongside the IPS and in coordination with it, with a liability arrangement that ensures that the IPS funds are readily available to BVR-ISG.
Accounting
The BVR publishes consolidated financial statements of the Cooperative Financial Group, in line with the reporting requirements for institutional protection schemes set out in Article 113(7)(e) of the EU Capital Requirements Regulation
The Capital Requirements Regulation''(EU) No. 575/2013is an EU law that aims to decrease the likelihood that banks go insolvent. With the Credit Institutions Directive 2013 the Capital Requirements Regulation 2013 (CRR 2013) reflects Basel III r ...
. These financial statements are prepared in line with International Financial Reporting Standards
International Financial Reporting Standards, commonly called IFRS, are accounting standards issued by the IFRS Foundation and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). They constitute a standardised way of describing the company's f ...
. They are not reviewed by an external auditor. Separately, DZ Bank publishes audited consolidated financial statements.
International activities
The Cooperative Financial Group's operations are predominantly domestic in Germany. Even for the central financial institution DZ Bank
DZ Bank AG () is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's la ...
, Germany represented 88.3 percent of total operating income in 2020.
Branding
Many of the group's local member banks use the or name or variants thereof, reflected in the abbreviations "VR" or "R+V" in the names of some of the 's entities. Other local banks have kept a pre-existing name that predates the constitution of the Cooperative Group as a national network.
With the increased integration of the formerly separate Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken networks, the Cooperative Group has created a blue-orange color code that blends features of the two previous logos, respectively a stylized "V" and a house gable motif with sculpted horseheads, the latter already present during Raiffeisen's lifetime. The new logo has been adopted by most of the group's cooperative member banks, with few exceptions such as Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall which has kept its historic red-yellow logo.
File:Volksbank-Mosaik.jpg, Former logo of the , displayed on a pavement in Freiburg im Breisgau
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population o ...
File:Logo-Raiffeisenbank-1877.svg, Former Raiffeisen logo with the house gable motif
File:Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall logo.svg, Logo of Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall
See also
* List of co-operative banks in Germany
This is a list of cooperative banking, co-operative banks in Germany according to the information provided by the Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken (BVR) umbrella organisation.
By late 2008, there were 1,197 co-operative ...
Banking networks or groups inspired by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in other countries:
* Raiffeisen Bankengruppe in Austria
* KBC Group
KBC Group is a Belgian universal multi-channel bank-insurer, focusing on private clients and small and medium-sized enterprises in Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. It was created in 1998 through the merger of Kredietbank ...
in Belgium
* Crédit Mutuel in France
* Raiffeisen Landesbank Südtirol – Cassa Centrale Raiffeisen dell'Alto Adige in Italy
* Banque Raiffeisen
Banque Raiffeisen is a Luxembourgish banking and financial services company. Founded in 1926, it is one of the oldest banks in Luxembourg. The bank is independent from foreign shareholders. It is a member of the International Raiffeisen Union ( ...
in Luxembourg
* Rabobank
Rabobank (; full name: ''Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.'') is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks (2019), a central organisation (Raboban ...
in the Netherlands
* Raiffeisen (Switzerland)
Raiffeisen Switzerland is a cooperative of cooperatives – the union of all independent Swiss Raiffeisen banks. It bears responsibility for the business policy and strategy within the Raiffeisen Group. The 246 independent Raiffeisen banks of Sw ...
Notes
{{reflist
External links
* https://www.vr.de/
Banking in Germany
Cooperative banks of Germany