Just before bankruptcy application: Bafin made Wirecard a top priority late

In the Wirecard case, allegations that the financial supervisory authority has been idle for too long are getting new food: According to a report, Bafin boss Hufeld only intervened in the crisis talks in mid-June, even though the financial services provider had already announced the scandal of the balance sheet months earlier.

The management of the financial supervisory authority Bafin apparently made the Wirecard case a top priority shortly before the collapse of the company and engaged in the crisis talks with the management. This emerges from a response from the Federal Ministry of Finance to inquiries from the parliamentary groups of the Greens and Leftists, which is available to the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" (FAS). According to the newspaper, Bafin President Felix Hufeld made his first phone call to top managers from Wirecard in mid-June, a few days before the bankruptcy application.

Bafin President Felix Hufeld.

(Photo: picture alliance / dpa)

According to the newspaper, Hufeld spoke to the newly installed CEO James Freis as well as Wirecard's supervisory board director Thomas Eichelmann. Bafin Vice President Elisabeth Roegele and Bafin Director Raimund Röseler, who is responsible for banking supervision, have so far not had any direct talks with Wirecard's board of directors and supervisory boards, even though the situation has intensified over many months.

"In view of the many indications, Mr. Hufeld should have made the Wirecard case a top priority much earlier," the green finance politician Danyal Bayaz told the newspaper. The responsible Vice President Roegele was "completely submerged" in the Wirecard case.

State Secretary Kukies met Braun

While the Bafin Executive Board itself only recently intervened, there was already a conversation in autumn 2019 between the State Secretary for Finance and Bafin Board Member Jörg Kukies and the then Wirecard CEO Markus Braun – on November 5, Braun's 50th birthday. The Ministry of Finance did not state whether the well-known allegations against Wirecard had already been raised in its response, citing "secret protection interests".

This has also met with fierce criticism from parliamentarians: "The public has the right to know what Mr Kukies had to say to CEO Markus Braun on his birthday so secretly," said left-wing financial expert Fabio De Masi. At the request of the newspaper, the Bafin did not want to comment on the subject.