Deutsches Aktieninstitut
Deutsches Aktieninstitut is the association of listed companies and other capital market firms in Germany and has represented their interests since 1953. Its more than 200 member companies account for about 85 percent of the market capitalization of German listed stock corporations, and they include industrial groups as well as banks, exchanges and asset managers.
Deutsches Aktieninstitut brings the positions of its members into the legislative process in Berlin and Brussels and argues for regulation with a sense of proportion. As a think tank it publishes studies, position papers and the annual shareholder figures, and its working groups and conferences bring members together with policymakers and supervisors.
Shareholder figures for Germany
The shareholder figures for 2025 count 14.1 million people in Germany who own equity funds, ETFs or shares, two million more than a year earlier and a new record. Of these, 9.2 million held only funds or ETFs, 2 million held only shares of individual companies, and 2.9 million combined both forms. Investors under 40 have been the largest group since 2024 and reached 4.9 million people in 2025.
The figures come from a representative survey by Kantar, which asks about 28,000 people aged 14 and over in Germany about their investments every year. Deutsches Aktieninstitut uses the results to argue for a larger role of shares in all three pillars of retirement provision, including a tax-supported investment savings account.
Return triangles for DAX, EURO STOXX and MSCI World
The return triangles of Deutsches Aktieninstitut show the average annual return of an equity investment for each pair of start and end years in a single chart. There are versions for a lump sum in the DAX and in the EURO STOXX and for monthly savings plans in the DAX and in the MSCI World, which covers more than 1,350 companies from over 20 countries.
When the MSCI World triangle was introduced, a monthly investment of 50 euros over 20 years had grown to almost 34,000 euros, a return of 9.4 percent a year. A special edition for the 70th anniversary of the institute goes back to 1953, its founding year, and banks and insurers can license the triangles for use in investment advice.
Members, president and management
Ordinary members of Deutsches Aktieninstitut are stock corporations, companies of other legal forms, associations and institutions, and other organizations can join as supporting members. Members take part in just under 20 working and project groups and receive a monthly newsletter on regulatory developments.
Melanie Kreis of DHL Group is president and chairs the executive committee, whose members come from companies such as SAP, Siemens, BASF, Allianz and Deutsche Bank. Henriette Peucker has led the institute as chief executive since 2024, after Christine Bortenlänger had held the post for almost twelve years. Henriette Peucker was deputy managing director of the Association of German Banks until mid-2023. Birgit Homburger heads politics and communication at the institute and leads the Berlin office.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Germany
Offices in Frankfurt, Berlin and Brussels
The seat of Deutsches Aktieninstitut is at Senckenberganlage 28 in 60325 Frankfurt am Main. The capital office is at Behrenstraße 73 in 10117 Berlin, and the EU liaison office is at Rue Marie de Bourgogne 58 in 1000 Brussels.
Deutsches Aktieninstitut also manages the office of the Government Commission on the German Corporate Governance Code, which issues the code for listed companies in Germany.
Digital finance and electronic securities
Deutsches Aktieninstitut sees the digitization of capital markets as an opportunity for Germany and Europe and asks for proportionate rules that leave room for blockchain and AI. In March 2026 it published proposals to make the Electronic Securities Act more practical, so that central register securities and crypto securities find wider use in the market.
Earlier papers dealt with the digital euro, where the institute asked in 2022 that the needs of the real economy be taken into account, and in 2019 with electronic securities and tokens on the blockchain. Gerrit Fey, the chief economist of Deutsches Aktieninstitut, is the contact for these subjects.
Deutsches Aktieninstitut and Finance Loop
Finance Loop members work on many of the questions that Deutsches Aktieninstitut raises with lawmakers, from electronic securities under the eWpG to the role of shares and ETFs in pension saving. Finance Loop holds events on tokenized securities and digital capital markets in Frankfurt and in other European financial centers.
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.