One of BaFin's tasks is to ensure the protection of all consumers in its supervision of banks and financial service providers, private insurers and securities trading. You can therefore address your concerns to BaFin if you believe that a supervised company has violated the law and you would like to complain about this as a customer.

You can submit a complaint if a bank

• unlawfully refuses to open a basic account for you.
• does not comply with the obligation to help you switch accounts.
• charges an unreasonable fee for a basic account.
• unlawfully terminates your basic account.

Opening a basic account:

Since the introduction of the Payment Accounts Act (ZKG) in 2016, all consumers who are legally resident in the European Union are entitled to a basic account. Once you have submitted your application for a basic account, the bank must inform you in writing within 10 days that it does not wish to open a basic account for you.

If the bank has rejected your application to open a basic account, you can apply to BaFin for an administrative procedure.

• BaFin will then check whether the bank was allowed to reject your application - which is only permitted under certain conditions. This is the case if:
  • You already have a payment account with another bank in Germany and you can actually use this account,
  • you have been convicted of an intentional criminal offense against the bank or one of its employees or one of its customers within the last 3 years before submitting the application,
  • you already had a basic account with the same bank and the bank has justifiably terminated the basic account agreement due to late payment or use of the account for prohibited purposes, or
  • by entering into and maintaining a business relationship with you, the bank would be in breach of its general due diligence obligations under the German Money Laundering Act and the German Banking Act or would be in breach of its confidentiality obligations when justifying the refusal.
• If there are no statutory grounds for refusal, BaFin will order the bank to open the account.

Account switching:

The ZKG also obliges banks to make it easier for you to switch accounts. At your request, the previous provider must transfer the standing orders and other services to the new provider. If the financial service providers do not comply with their obligation to provide statutory account switching assistance, you can report this to BaFin. It investigates complaints and works to ensure that any deficiencies are rectified.

Fee claim:

You can also lodge a complaint with BaFin in the event of an unreasonable fee claim. As the legislator has not set a maximum limit for the costs of a basic account, the prices for a basic account vary greatly. According to the ZKG, 2 criteria in particular must be taken into account when assessing appropriateness:

• the standard market fees
• and user behavior.

If BaFin determines that the pricing is unreasonable, it can instruct a bank to adjust its fee model for basic accounts to the requirements of the ZKG.