Berufsverband der Compliance Manager
The Berufsverband der Compliance Manager (BCM) is the professional association of compliance managers in Germany and has its seat in Berlin. Since its founding in 2013 the BCM has grown to more than 1,300 members in the German-speaking countries. Only in-house compliance officers of companies, associations and other organizations can join, and the membership stays with the person when the employer changes.
The BCM organizes its members in six regional groups and fourteen working groups for the exchange of experience across companies and industries. The association develops a professional profile and training standards for compliance managers and represents them in political debates. On the European level the BCM belongs to the European Network for Compliance Officers (ENFCO).
Bundeskongress Compliance in Berlin
The Bundeskongress Compliance (in German) is the main yearly event of the association, where compliance managers from all industries meet speakers from politics and business in Berlin. The BCM is the non-commercial sponsor of the congress and adds its own talks, panels and workshops to the program. BCM members get a reduced ticket price, and the annual general meeting of the association takes place on the first day of the congress.
Working groups for banks and money laundering
The working group on financial services (in German) deals with compliance rules that apply to banks, such as the compliance function under MaRisk and the compliance rules for securities trading. The group also covers the central office for money laundering and fraud prevention that Section 25c of the German Banking Act requires. Jörg Rößler, Head of Governance at Westpac Europe and former chief compliance officer of Union Investment, leads this working group.
A separate working group on money laundering compliance covers money laundering prevention, criminal liability and the new EU rules. The IT compliance group writes guides together with the ISACA Germany Chapter, the association of IT auditors and information security managers. Further working groups deal with anti-corruption, antitrust law, export compliance, whistleblowing, data protection, ESG compliance and product compliance.
Regional groups and Coaching Days
Six regional groups cover the West, Southwest, Southeast, East and North of Germany as well as Austria and Switzerland, and the Southwest group includes Hesse with Frankfurt. Regional leaders and city speakers are nominated every two years and need the approval of the presidium. The BCM Coaching Days are practical workshops that sponsoring partners of the association prepare, and members attend them free of charge, online or in person.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Germany
President and presidium
The members elect the presidium of the BCM every two years at the general meeting, and it currently has twelve members. President is Martin Benda, Vice President Legal & General Counsel of PUMA SE, and Sebastian Raendler, General Counsel and Compliance Officer of APCOA Deutschland, is the executive vice president. From financial services, the presidium includes Sabine Scholz-Fröhling, Group General Counsel of the Finanzen.net Group and former chief compliance officer of Fidor Bank.
Membership and annual fee
Membership in the BCM costs 130 euros a year (in German), and the association sends the invoice for the full year in January. The lobby register of the German Bundestag lists 1,347 members as of June 2026 (in German), of whom 1,323 are individuals. The office of the association is at Werderscher Markt 13 in 10117 Berlin.
Berufsverband der Compliance Manager and Finance Loop
Compliance managers in banks and fintech companies apply MaRisk, the money laundering rules and the EU AI Act to new products such as stablecoins, tokenized securities and AI models. Finance Loop members discuss these questions in the Risk & Compliance track and at events in Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.