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Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

theguardian.com

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Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#81

Post by kecks »

dualogy wrote: post #72
simi_ wrote: post #64

Moving from the UK to Germany, I chose Deutsche Bank based on its reputation. Pros: * English! There is always someone on the phone who can speak English, and they can even send their letters in English. (for Germany, this is very rare) * More "high touch" - there is a person assigned to your account * I can't remember if this was the case in UK, but I noticed that transfers to some Western EU countries have no fees…

> The way to authorise online transactions is with a piece of paper with 100 codes printed on it (TAN list). This was a shock, but it's apparently common here. Well whoever can hack your password, mobile TAN or TAN reader device will likely still not hack into your paper TAN list. There's something to be said for a "physical layer".

VISA debit isn't available in NL either. I get the impressions very few countries actually give out these cards.

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#82

Post by elcapitan »

simi_ wrote: post #64

Moving from the UK to Germany, I chose Deutsche Bank based on its reputation. Pros: * English! There is always someone on the phone who can speak English, and they can even send their letters in English. (for Germany, this is very rare) * More "high touch" - there is a person assigned to your account * I can't remember if this was the case in UK, but I noticed that transfers to some Western EU countries have no fees…

Different countries, different markets, right? Most Germans don't have a CC (if so, then often only for vacation). Inside Germany, the preferred payment version is direct debit. For ecommerce usually paypal as well. Everybody has an EC card (=debit card) issued by their bank and uses that for paying without cash in shops. Even with a CC you wouldn't be able to pay in many of them.

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#83

Post by morsch »

simi_ wrote: post #64

Moving from the UK to Germany, I chose Deutsche Bank based on its reputation. Pros: * English! There is always someone on the phone who can speak English, and they can even send their letters in English. (for Germany, this is very rare) * More "high touch" - there is a person assigned to your account * I can't remember if this was the case in UK, but I noticed that transfers to some Western EU countries have no fees…

Deutsche Bank is pretty expensive. The debit card (which is useless for shopping online, although most local online stores offer other alternatives to credit cards) is free for most people, and I think I pay about 20 EUR/year for my credit card. This is with another large bank.

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#84

Post by Udo »

simi_ wrote: post #64

Moving from the UK to Germany, I chose Deutsche Bank based on its reputation. Pros: * English! There is always someone on the phone who can speak English, and they can even send their letters in English. (for Germany, this is very rare) * More "high touch" - there is a person assigned to your account * I can't remember if this was the case in UK, but I noticed that transfers to some Western EU countries have no fees…

I'm a (german) DB customer as well, and I can't say I share a lot of these experiences.

> Buggy app and web interface, sometimes the login fails or hangs randomly

This never happened to me, maybe I'm just lucky. There used to be a problem with the web interface when you entered the banking system's URL without "https://" but that's not really the same.

> The way to authorise online transactions is with a piece of paper with 100 codes printed on it (TAN list)

I think the TAN list is just there to get you started (and for some technophobic Germans). I used it to set up SMS TANs immediately, and I think there is still an option for a dedicated TAN generator device (at least there used to be). Don't use the TAN list!

> Stupid useless cards. The default account (€5/month) comes with a card (EC Karte) that can only be used at German ATMs and in most German stores.

An EC Card is the thing you need to go shopping in Germany. It's entirely appropriate for this country, and contrary to what you claim it works just fine internationally (at least mine does). While it's true that some banks offer a separate VISA credit card, it shouldn't be a problem for you to get one elsewhere. As for VISA debit cards, I'm not sure if those even exist in Germany.

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#85

Post by mschuster91 »

dualogy wrote: post #72
simi_ wrote: post #64

Moving from the UK to Germany, I chose Deutsche Bank based on its reputation. Pros: * English! There is always someone on the phone who can speak English, and they can even send their letters in English. (for Germany, this is very rare) * More "high touch" - there is a person assigned to your account * I can't remember if this was the case in UK, but I noticed that transfers to some Western EU countries have no fees…

> The way to authorise online transactions is with a piece of paper with 100 codes printed on it (TAN list). This was a shock, but it's apparently common here. Well whoever can hack your password, mobile TAN or TAN reader device will likely still not hack into your paper TAN list. There's something to be said for a "physical layer".

> Well whoever can hack your password, mobile TAN or TAN reader device will likely still not hack into your paper TAN list.

They are frequently hacked by phishing (intercepting the bank site, changing out the reciever and asking for the TAN code nevertheless). chipTAN for example works by optically transmitting the transaction details to a small handheld device with your banking card inserted, and the handheld device shows you the IBAN and amount... foolproof.

http://business.chip.de/bii/1/6/5/0/1/8/6/0/chipTAN_sparkass... for an example pic of such a handheld device.

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#86

Post by binarray2000 »

mohawk wrote: post #37
vegabook wrote: post #16

Deutsche Bank is counterparty to 55 trillion euros of derivatives contracts (about 65 trillion USD). I worked for 3 years on its trading floor. It was Sales-a-gogo. "Print as much as you can". It's one of the very biggest counterparties to derivatives. Imagine if there was basis risk of only one tenth of one percent on those books (ie hedge imperfection usually due to a third factor such as credit quality or geograph…

You've hit the nail on the head, the derivatives they have on their books are massive compared to shareholder equity. "Counterparty risk" are the words nobody analysing bank's derivatives positions wants to hear. It's a terrible mistake there has never been a separation of investment banking from commercial banking in Germany (i realise the line is hard to draw), because the German taxpayer is essentially guaranteein…

Not only giving advice: "Deutsche Bank boss throws party, Merkel foots the bill" (http://www.dw.com/en/deutsche-bank-boss-throws-party-merkel-...).

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#88

Post by cm2187 »

cturner wrote: post #49
Hermel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why there isn't more resistance against the exorbitant fines the US charges European banks every year. These fines have become a significant business risk and should be regulated in free trade agreements, just like subsidies are limited in such agreements. For many European banks, the US business is a money drain, i.e. it costs them more than they get from it. However, they cannot escape US regulation and le…

> they cannot escape US regulation and legal exposure as > long as they want to have the ability to trade US dollars You don't need to be in the US to trade USD. FX is more lightly regulated than almost all other asset classes. For most of the cold war there was a strong trade in USD based out of London-based banks that had no US presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurodollar

But you still need a bank that can clear USD payments to trade FX.

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#89

Post by Havoc »

vegabook wrote: post #16

Deutsche Bank is counterparty to 55 trillion euros of derivatives contracts (about 65 trillion USD). I worked for 3 years on its trading floor. It was Sales-a-gogo. "Print as much as you can". It's one of the very biggest counterparties to derivatives. Imagine if there was basis risk of only one tenth of one percent on those books (ie hedge imperfection usually due to a third factor such as credit quality or geograph…

So what exactly happens if they go under? All the counterparties are just sht out of luck?

Re: Deutsche Bank: Germany's Financial Colossus Stumbles

#90

Post by Atropos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

Maybe now we'll finally get eurozone-wide mutualised deposit insurance.

Wouldn't help, Deutsche Bank doesn't have too many retail clients, getting reimbursed for 100.000 Euros of deposits doesn't help the typical corporate client much.

Highly unusual for an investment bank, they acquired Postbank to open up a retail channel, but that is < 5% of the size of Deutsche Bank.

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