Paper on financial policy: traffic light parties want more power for Bafin

Financial Policy Paper
Traffic light parties want more power for Bafin

So far, the coalition negotiations between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP have not made it public. A document from the finance working group now shows where there are still ambiguities. However, there seems to be a consensus that the Bafin supervisory authority should be upgraded.

The traffic light parties SPD, Greens and FDP want to transfer further powers to the supervisory authority Bafin in the financial market area. In a ten-page paper from the finance working group, which was available to the Reuters news agency, it is said, among other things, that Bafin should be given more powers to review investment prospectuses. In the case of certain activities, the Bonn authority is also to be given responsibility for supervising money laundering. A service website is to be created at Bafin to enable a better comparison of account fees.

These points are obviously indisputable in the paper. In many other places, however, differences between the three partners can be recognized – by means of crossed-out sentences or color-coded formulations that indicate the wishes of a particular party. The Ampel partners had recently repeatedly insisted on confidentiality and left questions about specific content unanswered.

The paper is dated November 9th, shortly before the end of the negotiation phase of the 22 working groups. The main negotiating group is currently discussing the open questions. The coalition agreement should then be in place by next week.

In the financial market paper it is said in the obviously undisputed passages that high-frequency trading on the stock exchange should be limited. In addition, speculation with food is to be restricted at the European level – by lowering position limits. At the European level, the Ampel partners also want to complete the banking union. In this context, they are committed to the so-called three-pillar model in Germany made up of private banks, public savings banks and cooperative Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks. The aim is a European reinsurance for the national deposit insurance systems of banks. The contributions for this should be based on the respective risk. Communityization of the security systems is expressly not the aim.

Another controversial issue is whether the Bafin should upgrade the topic of consumer protection. So far, there has been no agreement on whether a cash limit of 10,000 euros should be introduced. A commission cap – to lower the costs of taking out life insurance – is also controversial. There is particularly much disagreement on the subject of sustainable finance. It is still open, for example, whether all three parties support the formulation that nuclear power should not be considered sustainable.

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