Felix Hufeld: After the Bafin boss leaves, Olaf Scholz has to deliver

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Olaf Scholz (SPD) does not have to be accused of having dropped Bafin President Felix Hufeld too quickly.

Seven months have passed since the billions in fraud involving the payment service provider Wirecard became public.

Seven months in which Hufeld clung to his job, always in the hope of being able to save his own reputation and that of his authority.

Vain.

At the end of a week with all sorts of new oddities about the Wirecard scandal, he is kicked out.

Rightly.

The story that Hufeld had put forward for a long time that the financial supervisory authorities would have liked to have taken action against Wirecard earlier and more severely if they had only had the necessary skills could no longer be upheld.

It is true that the possibilities that the legislature has granted the Bafin to date are often overestimated.

But in the end, when the investigative committee came to terms with the scandal, too many hair-raising mistakes were made public, which were committed in the agency itself.

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Bafin employees, who were obviously directly entrusted with the supervision of the company or at least had insight, speculated with Wirecard shares shortly before the bankruptcy.

One of them was reported on Wednesday on suspicion of insider trading.

And when it became public on what fragile basis the short sale ban on Wirecard shares was imposed in February 2019, Hufeld could no longer be held - and neither was Bafin Director Elisabeth Roegele, who is responsible for securities supervision.

All eyes are on Scholz

With a realignment of the financial supervision, it must now not only be about expanded control options over companies, about new specialists for forensics and accounting officers.

Even more, a change in mentality is needed within the Bafin.

The gambling on shares by the supervisory staff and market interventions without reliable evidence have damaged the image of Bafin and the entire financial center beyond the Wirecard fraud.

Now that Hufeld is gone, all eyes are on Finance Minister Scholz.

So far, the Wirecard scandal and the work of the committee of inquiry has not harmed him politically.

But this will only stay that way if he succeeds in restarting the authority under his control.

It is now up to Scholz.

A convincing succession solution is needed.

The party book must not play a role in this.

At Bafin, the chancellor candidate can show whether he is really the doer he likes to see himself as before the federal election.