Finance Berlin

The 28 banks in Berlin employ about 11,700 people, with Deutsche Bank among the largest employers alongside Commerzbank and the cooperative bank Berliner Volksbank. Berlin is the fifth-largest insurance location in Germany by revenue, with 32 insurance providers, 26 of them insurance companies, and five pension funds. Most finance firms sit in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and Mitte, Berlin Partner reports, and Berlin attracted 31 percent of the venture capital raised in Germany in 2024.

The sector's fastest-growing part is fintech: the Investitionsbank Berlin counts 189 active fintechs in the city, more than in Munich and Frankfurt together.

The company register as of 30 September 2020 recorded 652 financial-services companies with around 13,500 employees in Berlin, including 28 central banks and credit institutions. The historical figures are published by Berlin Partner for Business and Technology. The House of Finance and Tech connects the city's banks and fintechs.

In the first decades of the 20th century, Berlin was a leading international financial center, as the German Institute for Economic Research recalls. After the Second World War and the division of the city, the role passed to Frankfurt: the Bank deutscher Länder was founded there in 1948, and Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank moved their head offices to Frankfurt in 1957.

Berlin kept the political side of finance. The Federal Ministry of Finance has had its seat in the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus on Wilhelmstraße since 1999. The ministry drafts German financial market legislation and oversees BaFin.

Traditional finance in Berlin runs through its banks and insurers first. Deutsche Bank has about 4,660 employees in the city, Berliner Volksbank about 1,820 and Commerzbank about 1,670, according to Berlin Partner. The Investitionsbank Berlin is the development bank of the state, and the insurance side includes a reinsurer and five pension funds.

A bank, insurer or investment firm in Berlin answers to the same national and EU rules as one in Frankfurt or Munich. BaFin licenses and supervises credit institutions, payment institutions and investment firms from Bonn and Frankfurt, so Berlin has no regulator of its own, and a firm's compliance and legal teams in Berlin work against the same rulebook as their counterparts on the Main.

Investment firms and asset managers in Berlin apply MiFID II to client business, and a firm that offers crypto-asset services needs authorization under the EU MiCA regulation. The EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) applies directly since 17 January 2025, and it treats a bank's technology suppliers, including the fintech platforms several Berlin banks rely on, as part of the bank's own risk management.

The Berlin Finance Initiative promotes traditional and new financial market players in Berlin and wants to create a financial and technology hub that is unique in Europe, as it says itself. The Berlin Finance Initiative is a partner of the de:hub FinTech Berlin and represents banks, neobanks and brokers among its participating companies.

The House of Finance and Tech is that de:hub. The State of Berlin set it up in 2024 with the Investitionsbank Berlin, the Berlin Finance Initiative and Berlin Partner, and Deutsche Bank, N26, Solaris and Qonto were among its founding members. The House of Finance and Tech works on financial wellbeing and brings banks, fintechs, investors and regulators together.

Payment Exchange, the payments conference of Payment & Banking, opens the German payments year in Berlin in late winter. FIBE, the Fintech Festival Berlin, fills CityCube Berlin in April, and the House of Finance and Tech runs its FinWell Summit on financial wellbeing in December. Finance teams meet at the World Finance Forum in Berlin, a one-day event with sessions on AI, automation and economic volatility.

Finance Loop started in Frankfurt and holds events in Berlin as well, where it is a meeting place for people who work at banks, insurers, asset managers and fintechs, alongside IT and AI people from the wider finance sector. The Bitcoin for Investors masterclass from Finance Loop runs for professional investors and asset managers in Berlin, and Finance Loop is a founding member of the Bitcoin Bundesverband, which was formed in Berlin.

The Berlin Finance Initiative is the group that promotes Berlin's traditional and new financial market players toward policymakers, from banks and insurers to neobanks and brokers. The Berlin Finance Initiative is a partner of the de:hub FinTech Berlin, the House of Finance and Tech, and has a representative in the United States.

Berlin was a leading financial center before the Second World War, but today Frankfurt hosts the European Central Bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, Deutsche Börse and securities supervision by BaFin. Berlin has the Finance Ministry, the most fintechs in Germany and a smaller banking base, and BaFin supervises Berlin firms from Bonn and Frankfurt.

The House of Finance and Tech Berlin, short HoFT, is the Berlin fintech hub of the federal Digital Hub Initiative, set up in 2024 by the State of Berlin together with the private sector. The members of the House of Finance and Tech Berlin include banks, fintechs, insurers and advisers, and it runs programs and events on financial wellbeing and fintech regulation.