Deutsche Kreditbank

The Deutsche Kreditbank was founded on March 19, 1990 as first private bank of East Germany and was set up as a stock corporation. One of the founders was Edgar Most, the last vice president of the Staatsbank (State Bank of the GDR). The share capital was held by the Staatsbank of the GDR, the Verband deutscher Konsumgenossenschaften, the Interhotels, the nationally owned Centrum Warenhaus and the VEB Synthesewerk Schwarzheide. On 1 April 1990, the bank began operations in the GDR with an opening balance of 286.5 billion East German mark. From the outset, the Deutsche Kreditbank covered the broad spectrum from business to private customers.[1] In the closing balance on 30 June 1990, the bank's own funds amounted to 11 billion East German mark.[2]

On June 21, 1990 the debit of the Staatsbank was endorsed on the DKB[3] and the shares of the DKB that were owned by the Staatsbank were transferred to the Treuhandanstalt. In the following years the Treuhandanstalt bought the remaining shares from the founding shareholders until, in the beginning of 1993, it was the sole owner of the DKB.

The majority of the deposit-taking business (especially corporate and private banking) as well as a number of branch buildings and locations were taken over by Dresdner Bank and by Deutsche Bank in the course of the currency union and ran under Dresdner Bank Kreditbank AG and Deutsche Bank Kreditbank AG until 1991.

According to the report of the Bundesrechnungshof (Federal Audit Office) the buyers received access to the branches, the customer base and buildings of the GDR banks for preferential prices. That is how the Deutsche Bank got hold of shares of the DKB including 112 branch offices for 310 million Mark. A subsidiary of the Dresdner Bank paid 87,3 million Deutsche Mark for 41 properties including buildings that formerly were owned by the DKB. A subsidiary of the Deutschen Bank bought 74 properties for 164,4 million Deutsche Mark. The auditors of the Bundesrechnungshof called these "unreasonable low purchase prices".[4]

When the Treuhandanstalt was closed on December 31, 1994 the DKB was shortly owned by the Federal Ministry of Finance until the bank was sold to BayernLB on January 31, 1995.

DKB building in Berlin

The bank runs 26 branch offices all over Germany. The property subsidiary DKB Grund Gmbh is based in 15 of these locations.[5]

On January 1, 2008 the DKB took over the Miles & More-Credit Card which before was put out by BayernLB in cooperation with Lufthansa.[6]

In the end of March 2012 the DKB Immobilien AG was sold to TAG Immobilien AG.[7]

Since June 14, 2015 the SKG Bank is no longer an independent stock company but a branch and own brand of the DKB.

The DKB issues regularly its own stocks on the capital market. In 2016 the volume of the shares on the market amounted to 10 billion Euro.[8] The rating agency Moody's Corporation rated DKBs bonds Aaa and its naked bonds A2. In 2016 the DKB issued its first so called Green Bond with a volume of 500 million Euro.[9] This bond was positively rated by the sustainability rating agency oekom research (Second Party Opinion). In addition, the DKB Geen Bond received the certification label from the Climate Bond Initiative (CBI).

The banks best known product is the Girokonto DKB Cash. Further products and services on offer are private real estate financing, brokerage, installment credits and saving products.

The bank only runs a small number of ATMs but offers its customers free use of other ATMs. Since June 2016 the bank charges fees for using ATMs in countries outside of the EU.[10]

Since June 2014 the DKB has cooperation with PayPal and offers its customers access to all their PayPal-transactions via the DKB online banking.[11]

The DKBs focus is on the digitalization of banking. Since 2013 the bank works on this goal together with respective service companies and FinTechs such as Berlin based FinReach for account changing services, Cringle for P2P-transactions via smartphone-app and WebID Solutions for the video-identification-procedure. The technology underlying the DKB-banking-app, with which customers can photograph and pay bills was designed by the company Gini.

Since December 8, 2014 DKB offers existing clients with pushTAN and chipTAN two alternative options to the iTan-procedure.[12]

DKB building in Schwerin

Since 2005 DKB puts together consolidated financial statements. Since 2006 the International Financial Reporting Standards are applied in the banks billing process.[13]

The board of directors is currently made up of 16 shareholders and employee representatives:[20]

Shareholder representatives

• Stephan Winkelmeier (chairman)
• Bernd Fröhlich
• Stefan Höck
• Michael Huber
• Marcus Kramer
• Ulrich Netzer
• Markus Wiegelmann
• Edgar Zoller

Employee representatives

• Bianca Häsen (vice chairman)
• Michaela Bergholz (labor union representative)
• Carsten Birkholz
• Christine Enz (labor union representative)
• Jörg Feyerabend
• Jens Hübler
• Maria Miranov
• Frank Radtke

Persons who, in the past, had a mandate in the bank:[21]

• Gerhard Gribkowsky, board of directors from April 3, 2007 until April 10, 2008
• Michael Kemmer, chairman of board of directors from March 1, 2008 until December 14, 2009, before member from April 3, 2007
• Siegfried Naser, board of directors from March 9, 2007 until June 30, 2009
• Franz Josef Pschierer, board of directors from February 24, 2009 until March 24, 2009
• Werner Schmidt, chairman of board of directors from March 8, 2006 until March 1, 2008, before vice chairman
• Günther Troppmann, chairman of board of directors from March 1, 1996 until December 31, 2012, before (since March 1, 1995) full member of board of directors

Sponsored Biathlete Tatsumi Kasahara

To focus its social activities the DKB founded the DKB foundation for social engagement (DKB Stiftung für gesellschaftliches Engagement) in October 2004. The foundation runs heritage-protected sites such as Schloss Liebenberg.[22] Since 2002 the bank supports German top athletes, sports clubs and leagues.[23] Athletes from the areas winter sports and athletic sports form the DKB team. In Berlin the bank is sponsoring partner of the sports teams Hertha BSC, Alba Berlin, Eisbären Berlin, Füchse Berlin and Berlin Recycling Volleys. Since 2007 the bank is name giver for the Oberhofer biathlon stadium, the DKB-Ski-Arena. Until 2009 the DKB was main sponsor for the ISTAF Berlin (athletics) and name giver for the DKB-Riders Tour (show jumping). Since the season 2012/2013 the DKB is name sponsor to the Handball-Bundesliga as well as to the 1. FFC Turbine Potsdam women football club.

In 2017 the bank bought the exclusive live broadcasting rights of the 2017 World Men's Handball Championship for Germany after various negotiations of internet provider and TV-channels with the rights owner beIN Media Group failed. The championship matches of the Germany men's national handball team were broadcast live via internet. It was the first time in Germany that a major sports event was broadcast by a single sponsor.[24] Over the duration of the event over 6 million visits to the website were recorded.[25]

Since 2016, the DKB reports its annual sustainability activities according to the "Deutschen Nachhaltigkeitskodex (DNK)" guidelines.[26]

• Official Website