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Old town of Schmalkalden
Photo: H. Tschanz-Hofmann / IMAGO
The financial regulator BaFin is tightening the screws on the "Effenberg Bank" in Schmalkalden, Thuringia. According to SPIEGEL information, the VR-Bank Bad Salzungen Schmalkalden must now report daily to BaFin on its liquidity situation, i.e. how much deposit money customers withdraw or, if necessary, reinvest. The reason for this is unusually high outflows of funds, according to a confidential source. The Volksbank does not want to comment on the information.
Such a requirement is unusual and only makes the supervisor if it is concerned about the stability of a credit institution – which is obviously the case in the case of the "Effenberg" bank. The Volksbank is commonly called this because it focuses on the business field of football financing and counts ex-national player Stefan Effenberg among its employees in order to use his contacts.
BaFin and the Volksbankenverband BVR have long been extremely critical of the bank from southern Thuringia, especially because of risky credit transactions. In two incendiary letters to the bank's management, which are available to SPIEGEL and date from September, the institutions are sounding the alarm with sometimes drastic formulations.
For example, BaFin orders that the Volksbank must increase its equity ratio from eight to 14 percent in order to arm itself against possible losses from credit transactions. There is talk of a "deficient risk culture", "questionable information and disclosures" vis-à-vis BaFin and the bank's supervisory board, as well as "significant (...) Concerns about the reliability of money laundering prevention and the bank's customer structure«.
The Volksbank originally did not want to comment on this information, but now lets it be known that it is "not true" that "the bank had to increase the equity ratio on the instructions of BaFin". Rather, they are "currently in an exchange with BaFin on this topic", and "no one knows what the result will be" yet.
The BVR's protection scheme, which is supposed to ensure that the system of cooperative banks does not wobble, is just as sharp as BaFin. It accuses the bank of significant gaps in its monitoring system as well as a "critical and unresolved risk situation".
The public prosecutor's office in Mühlhausen had already investigated bank boss Stefan Siebert in 2018 on suspicion of embezzlement because he is said to have taken personal advantage from the purchase of a property and thus harmed the bank. In 2021, the authority closed its investigation against payment of a fine. BaFin had demanded his dismissal in vain, among other things, on the basis of this real estate transaction.
In the meantime, Christian Endter, the bank's chairman of the supervisory board, has also come forward. The bank's "extensive and unusual, but not unlawful business model" has been criticized by BaFin for years, Endter said. The supervisory authority objected to transactions, "which could be cleared out again and again with the help of lawyers and is being cleared out". The Supervisory Board had backed the three members of the Management Board. »Regardless of this, we are confident that VR-Bank Bad Salzungen Schmalkalden will also master this situation," Endter continued.