The banks have to pay an ever-increasing levy to the EU resolution fund, while the repayment of 2.3 billion euros from the national restructuring fund (RSF) is still uncertain.

Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner has to decide on this after the summer break.

On Tuesday, the citizens' movement Finanzwende mobilized in Berlin: "Demanding money from the federal government even though there are still debts from the bank bailouts is just outrageous," said Gerhard Schick, founder and chairman of the citizens' movement.

Markus Fruehauf

Editor in Business.

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Between 2011 and 2014, the banks had to pay the 2.3 billion euros into the restructuring fund (RSF) of the Financial Market Stabilization Agency (FMSA), which is responsible for bank rescues.

The RSF was then replaced by the EU resolution fund (Single Resolution Fund).

Finanzwende refers to the more than 70 billion euros that have been raised for bank bailouts since 2007 in the wake of the financial crisis.

The bank rescue fund Soffin alone still had debts of 22.8 billion euros at the end of 2021, which mainly consisted of losses in the value of the Commerzbank stake and the support measures for the liquidated Hypo Real Estate (HRE).

Bundesbank supports banks

Finanzwende is based on a report commissioned by the Ministry of Finance.

As the FAZ reported on July 21, Professor Ekkehart Reimer and his academic assistant Andjela Milutinovic from the Institute for Finance and Tax Law at the University of Heidelberg came to the conclusion that the institutes had no right to payment of the remaining funds from the RSF.

On the other hand, the banks are supported in their demand by the Bundesbank: "We think it is justifiable if these funds are used for outstanding contributions from the banks to the European resolution fund SRF," said Joachim Wuermeling, Bundesbank board member for banking supervision, on 28 April. July in an interview with the FAZ According to him, the banks raised these funds themselves in order to finance settlements in difficulties.

For the current year, the contribution of German banks to the SRF has increased by more than a third to 3.38 billion euros, as the German financial regulator Bafin announced on Monday.

According to Bafin, 2.03 billion euros of the current levy will go to large and regional banks, 560 million euros to state banks and leading institutions in the savings bank and cooperative sector, 368 million euros to savings banks, 226 million euros to the cooperative Volksbanks and 194 million euros to certain other institutions such as mortgage banks and financial service providers.

The SRF currently comprises 66 billion euros and is expected to reach 80 billion euros by the end of 2023.