Financial supervision: Traffic light parties want to upgrade BaFin with further powers

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 is 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 better compare account fees.

These points are obviously indisputable in the paper. In many other places, however, differences between the three partners can be identified - 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 limited at the European level - by lowering position limits.

Banking union in sight

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. Communitating the security systems is expressly not the aim.

Another controversial issue is whether BaFin should upgrade the subject 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 acquisition costs of 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.