On 4 February 2025, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin) imposed administrative fines amounting to EUR 23.05 million on Deutsche Bank AG.

The company breached organisational requirements under the German Securities Trading Act (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz – WpHG) in connection with the sale of derivatives.

In addition, its Postbank branch disregarded the obligation to record investment advice and repeatedly failed to comply with the requirements of the German Payment Accounts Act (Zahlungskontengesetz – ZKG) regarding the account switching service.

Following allegations relating to the sale of currency derivatives in Spain, Deutsche Bank AG took too long to investigate the infringements and remedy the shortcomings. The sale of derivatives led to sanctioning proceedings initiated by the Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). The company did not make appropriate organisational arrangements to speed up the investigation of the breaches of the law and to implement measures to remedy the situation.

Furthermore, Postbank – a branch of Deutsche Bank AG – violated the requirement to record telephone conversations in connection with investment services. Exceptions to this rule were granted during the COVID-19 pandemic. After they expired, however, the company at times failed to take measures to ensure that the content of investment advice given by telephone was once again electronically recorded.

In addition, applications submitted to Postbank for the account switching service under the ZKG were not processed or were only processed with a delay in multiple cases.

BaFin has addressed all three issues in administrative fine proceedings. The total fine of EUR 23.05 million comprises EUR 14.8 million for the violations relating to derivatives sales, EUR 4.6 million for the violations relating to telephone recording and EUR 3.65 million for the violations relating to the switching service.

The administrative fine order is final and binding.