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Cooperative Financial Services Network

Cooperative banks - Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken

Proximity to the customer, responsibility for the region and partnership with small and mid-sized companies – these are the principles on which the 1,138 German local cooperative banks and other institutions and companies of the Cooperative Financial Services Network base their activities. As independent credit institutions with round about 160,000 staff members and blanket coverage in Germany, the cooperative banks provide more than 30 million customers with financial services.

A particularly unique quality of the cooperative banks is their traditional duty to promote the interests of their round about 16.7 million members. This means that over half of all customers of the cooperative banks are simultaneously shareholders in their banks – with all the accompanying advantages and co-determination rights.

Business volume and balance sheet totals

At the end of 2010, the loans granted by the cooperative banks (Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken) amounted to a total volume of € 406 billion, while deposits amounted to € 534 billion, of which € 205 billion alone were savings deposits (including savings bonds). Overall, the cumulative balance sheet total of the cooperative banks at the end of 2010 amounted to just under € 707 billion.

Cooperation with partners

The local banks are supported by numerous product and service providers, who enable even the smallest institutions to offer their customers all financial services from a single source. These include, in addition to the cooperative central banks – DZ BANK AG and WGZ BANK AG – divisional companies such as the building society Schwäbisch Hall AG, R+V Versicherung AG, Union Asset Management Holding AG, Teambank AG and the cooperative mortgage banks Deutsche Genossenschafts-Hypothekenbank AG, Münchener Hypothekenbank eG and WL Bank AG.

network rating

In the meantime, two independent rating agencies have confirmed that the cooperative banking group is not only a first-class, but above all a trustworthy and secure network. Both Standard & Poor’s and FitchRatings awarded the Cooperative Financial Services Network and all member banks the premium network rating A+. Thus the agencies have also honoured the protection scheme of the group, operated by the Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken (National Association of German Cooperative Banks), which has guaranteed the portfolios of its member institutions for over 70 years.

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