Deep disruption in service
BAFIN counts Postbank
September 19, 2023, 3:00 a.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
Postbank customers’ data is moving to Deutsche Bank and this has been causing turbulence for months. They are apparently so serious that the BAFIN supervisory authority is abandoning its usual restraint and issuing an urgent warning to the two institutions.
The head of the German financial regulator BAFIN, Mark Branson, is calling for the errors made by Postbank and its parent company Deutsche Bank in data migration to be quickly corrected. “Postbank now has to solve this quickly,” Branson told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, referring to the IT problems of many customers. “I would even say it’s a unique situation when we look at how many complaints there are about a single institution. So it’s no longer just an IT migration problem, but there are other profound disruptions in customer service.” His statements are unusually clear – the financial regulator does not normally comment on individual institutions.
Deutsche Bank has gradually taken over Postbank since 2009 and, in a final step, is now transferring the data of Postbank customers into Deutsche Bank’s systems. However, there were significant problems with the project called “Unity”, meaning that customers were temporarily unable to access their accounts and, above all, customer service was difficult to reach.
“Extremely difficult situation for customers”
It’s not about the fact that online banking at Postbank doesn’t work for two hours, Branson told the newspaper. “It’s about important services not being available, coupled with problems reaching customer service. For some customers, this leads to extremely difficult situations.”
At the beginning of September, BAFIN had already described the nature of the disruptions in more detail: “In addition to various disruptions in online and mobile banking as well as the lack of availability of telephone customer service, these include, in particular, long processing times for seizure and inheritance matters as well as for the closure/settlement of accounts and Repayment of savings deposits,” the regulator wrote. She threatened to impose measures on Deutsche Bank if the deficiencies were not remedied.