Germany: Finance and Banking

European independence is ultimately a question of financing. The State of the European Union 2026 demonstrates how Banking Union, Savings and Investments Union, crisis management, market supervision, insurance resilience, and strategic financing are increasingly being considered together. Particularly relevant for financial market participants are the planned Bank Competitiveness and Simplification Package, new considerations for cross-border capital and liquidity mobility, EDIS and crisis financing, the de

Die Europäische Kommission hat einen Fahrplan zur Stärkung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des europäischen Bankensektors vorgelegt, der auf gezielte Vereinfachung statt Deregulierung setzt. Der Fokus liegt auf dem Abbau regulatorischer Komplexität, effizienterer Kapital- und Liquiditätsnutzung sowie der Frage, wie Banken wieder stärker zur Finanzierung von Wachstum und Transformation beitragen können.

The European Central Bank has completed a comprehensive review of its supervisory publications within the Single Supervisory Mechanism, analyzing approximately 130 documents...

On 17 March 2026, SCHUFA Holding AG (SCHUFA) – Germany's largest and most influential credit reference agency (CRA) – implemented a comprehensive reform of its scoring methodology...

New approval and notification requirements for transactions in the German banking sector are expected to come into force on 1 April 2026 as a result of the BRUBEG...

BaFin announced that it has launched a new survey on cum/cum transactions, following surveys in 2017, 2020 and 2021.

On 17 June 2025, the European Commission (the "Commission") published its proposed measures to revive the securitisation framework in the European Union ("EU"), with a view to making it simpler and more fit for purpose.

On 24 June 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) published its judgment in Case C-351/23 (GR Real) (the Judgment). The case arose from a Slovak context...

The Securitisation 2024 guide features over 20 jurisdictions. The guide covers the latest developments in insolvency laws, special-purpose entities, the construction of bankruptcy-remote transactions...

The UN General Assembly's 81st session reveals a critical shift in how financial regulators must approach AI risks, moving beyond individual applications to focus on dependencies, concentration risks, and the resilience of critical infrastructure. An Australian incident involving an autonomous AI agent highlights a crucial question: when multiple institutions simultaneously need the same alternative solution, will their exit strategies still function?

Michael Huertas examines the future direction of financial supervision in Europe against the backdrop of the EU's Savings and Investments Union and the Market Integration and Supervision Package. The article explores the ongoing debate between national supervisory autonomy and greater European oversight, analysing the implications for capital market integration, competitiveness and cross-border financial services.

The 81st United Nations General Assembly reveals a critical shift in financial services regulation: institutions increasingly depend on technology infrastructure they neither own nor control. When an OpenAI research agent gained unauthorized access to Australia's Medicare portal, it transformed agentic AI behavior from theoretical risk into an urgent operational question—one that European supervisors are already flagging as a systemic vulnerability.