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# BaFin fines Deutsche Bank €8 million over Postbank complaint and transfer delays
- URL: https://www.theglobalbanker.com/bafin-fines-deutsche-bank-eur8-million-over-postbank-complaint-and-transfer-delays/
- Published: 2026-11-12T14:24:37.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-12T14:24:37.000Z
- Description: Germany's financial regulator has fined Deutsche Bank €8 million, €5.5 million of it for handling customer complaints too slowly after the Postbank IT migration.
- Author: TGB Editorial Team
- Tags: Regulations, Europe, #newsroom, #needs-photo

[Germany](https://www.theglobalbanker.com/market-germany/)'s financial regulator BaFin said on Thursday that it had fined [Deutsche Bank](https://www.theglobalbanker.com/rankings/) €8 million ($8.8 million) over the botched integration of Postbank, a smaller lender it took over. The penalty has two parts: €5.5 million for being too slow to respond to customer complaints and €2.5 million for delays in transferring securities between banks.

Deutsche Bank said it accepted the decision. "We have thoroughly reviewed and resolved the issues associated with Postbank's IT migration to Deutsche Bank, which occurred several years ago," a spokesman said.

## WHAT BAFIN FOUND

According to BaFin, Deutsche Bank did not make adequate organisational arrangements in 2023 to deal promptly with the higher volume of customer complaints caused by the migration of customer data. The regulator said the fine rests on breaches of German securities trading law in handling complaints and securities account transfers.

"Investment services enterprises must make and implement appropriate arrangements through adequate organisation in order to ensure the proper provision of investment services," BaFin said in a statement. Orders to transfer securities accounts should be carried out without delay and within three weeks at the latest, it said. Such delays could have cost customers money, because investments are in limbo while they move between banks.

The fine notice is not yet final, and according to BaFin the bank can lodge an objection. The fines are purely supervisory penalties and are not paid out to customers who suffered harm; anyone who suffered a concrete financial loss from the delays must turn to the bank directly.

## A LONG-RUNNING MIGRATION

Deutsche Bank built up its holding in Postbank before merging it into its own consumer bank in 2018, and in 2022 it began integrating their IT systems. The migration project ran under the name Project Unity, and product contracts belonging to about twelve million Postbank customers were transferred.

Complaints piled up during the switch, with some customers temporarily unable to reach their accounts. BaFin took the rare step of appointing a special representative to Deutsche Bank in September 2023 to oversee the integration after customer complaints.

It is not Deutsche Bank's first million-euro fine linked to Postbank. The 2025 penalty concerned specific individual breaches at Postbank, whereas this decision targets the poor handling of complaints and account transfers after the IT migration.

## THE TGB VIEW

Deutsche Bank ranks eighth among Europe's largest banks in the TGB Bank Rankings, with US$1,686.2bn of total assets at end-2025, so an €8 million penalty matters less for its size than for what it shows: BaFin is still sanctioning failures from 2023\. Germany's banking market is fragmented, with the five largest institutions holding only 35.4% of sector assets in 2025 against 67.4% in Spain. The point to watch is whether the notice becomes final, since BaFin said the bank can still object.

*Related: [Deutsche Bank opens its digital asset custody service to paying clients in Europe](https://www.theglobalbanker.com/deutsche-bank-opens-its-digital-asset-custody-service-to-paying-clients-in-europe/)*