Bank Marketing in Germany

An ad for a consumer loan that names an interest rate or another cost figure must state, under section 17 of the German Price Indication Ordinance (in German), the lender, the net loan amount, the borrowing rate and the annual percentage rate, with the APR shown at least as prominently as any other rate. A representative example is required, and its APR must be one at which the lender expects at least two thirds of the resulting contracts to be closed.

Ads for investment services must be fair, clear and not misleading and identifiable as marketing under Article 24(3) of MiFID II. Under section 23 of the German Banking Act (in German), BaFin can prohibit specific forms of bank advertising to counter abuses. For crypto trading, the Sparkassen and the cooperative banks have chosen not to advertise at all: both offers run without advice, and the Sparkasse plan comes with risk warnings up to total loss.

The Sparkassen serve about 50 million customers and share one core banking system, OSPlus from Finanz Informatik in Frankfurt. The roughly 700 Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken run on agree21 from Atruvia, with DZ BANK as their central institution. A vendor whose product reaches either group through the shared IT provider or the central institution can reach hundreds of banks with one contract; a vendor outside that route sells to each bank alone. Core banking in Germany explains the setup.

Private banks mostly run their own platforms, so they buy one by one through procurement, IT security and outsourcing review. The five associations of the Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft set common standards for German payments, such as EBICS and the SEPA data formats, which a payments vendor must support before a bank of any group buys.

Banks use AI in customer chatbots and in credit scoring, and BaFin names both as AI it supervises, as AI in banking in Germany describes. A model that sets the credit score of a natural person is high-risk under the EU AI Act. A marketing team that targets loan offers with such a model works inside these duties, and a vendor that sells the tool to a bank has to show how it meets them.

DZ BANK is one of Finance Loop's event and network partners. Partners can present to Finance Loop's more than 4,000 members at a sponsored meetup, a sponsored webinar or a hosted event.

Bank marketing is the marketing of banking products such as accounts, cards, loans and investments to private and business customers. The term also covers marketing aimed at banks by the vendors that sell them software, data and services.

Section 17 of the Price Indication Ordinance for consumer loans, MiFID II for investment services, MiCA for crypto-assets, the unfair competition act for email and phone marketing, and section 23 of the Banking Act, under which BaFin can prohibit specific forms of advertising.

Software that has to connect to OSPlus generally reaches the Sparkassen through Finanz Informatik, their shared IT provider. Each Sparkasse is still an independent bank and decides on services outside that system itself.