Federal Financial Supervisory Authority(BaFin1)

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, BaFin, operates in the public interest. Its aim is to guarantee a functioning, stable and honest German financial system. Bank customers, insured persons and investors should be able to trust the financial system. BaFin's more than 2,700 employees in Bonn and Frankfurt am Main had 1,555 directly supervised credit institutions, 1,189 financial services institutions, 51 payment and eight e-money institutions, twelve account information service providers, 94 German branches of foreign credit institutions from the European Economic Area, 20 branches in 2019 from third countries, 551 insurers and 33 pension funds, 547 capital management companies and 6,898 domestic funds controlled. With its solvency supervision, BaFin helps ensure the solvency of banks, insurers and financial service providers. In addition, BaFin's market supervision is intended to ensure fair and transparent conditions in the markets and protect the consumer community. One of the tasks of BaFin is to prevent the financial system from being misused for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes. In this way, BaFin ensures that the companies it supervises comply with the applicable requirements for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing. In Germany, banking, financial services and insurance business may not be carried out without a state permit. BaFin is monitoring this ban and has extensive powers of investigation and intervention. In addition, BaFin is the national resolution authority (NAB) for banks, investment firms and financial market infrastructures in Germany. BaFin is involved in numerous committees at EU level to create a uniform European financial market. She also helps shape global supervisory and settlement standards in international bodies.