Who wants to have tax investigators in the house?
For Dekabank, as a member of the public savings bank family, the reputational damage is particularly bad.
All over the country, their owners, around 350 German savings banks, praise themselves for their focus on the common good, their willingness to donate and the high tax payments that they make locally in their regions - very different from the big banks, whose taxes are incurred in the metropolises.
Tax evasion does not go with this noble image.
As in the case of Deka, even the mere suspicion affects the self-image of the savings bank group fundamentally.
In addition, Landesbanks owned by the federal states and savings banks such as the defunct West LB,
So Deka isn't alone in the public camp with her involvement in the cum-ex swamp, but that only makes things worse.
Deka can feel a single relief, which is quite beneficial in the German constitutional state with its presumption of innocence: the investigators approached her rather discreetly - without blue lights and quite different from the Deutsche Bank, where photojournalists are often warned and positioned accordingly before the investigators move in for a raid.
But again: Nobody wants tax investigators in the house.
The Deka is no exception.
Credibility is at stake.