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Savings banks and banks are terminating thousands of accounts: what customers need to know now

2023-01-13T04:03:58.546Z


Savings banks and banks are terminating thousands of accounts: what customers need to know now Created: 01/13/2023, 04:50 By: Wolfgang DePonte A number of savings banks, for their part, are canceling thousands of accounts. Guilt is a judgment of the Federal Court of Justice - and the persistence of customers. Munich – Millions of bank and savings bank customers have received mail from their fi


Savings banks and banks are terminating thousands of accounts: what customers need to know now

Created: 01/13/2023, 04:50

By: Wolfgang DePonte

A number of savings banks, for their part, are canceling thousands of accounts.

Guilt is a judgment of the Federal Court of Justice - and the persistence of customers.

Munich – Millions of bank and savings bank customers have received mail from their financial institution.

In the letter, they were asked to agree to the general terms and conditions and thus usually also higher account fees.

In many cases, those who did not comply with this request were threatened with the termination of the account.

Savings banks are serious: thousands of customers have been terminated

It is now clear that many banks have taken this seriously.

The Sparkasse Nürnberg terminated around 10,000 customers, the Sparkasse Hannover around 9000 in the third quarter of 2022 alone. This is reported by the

Handelsblatt

.

The Stadtsparkasse München did not want to provide any information on whether and how many of its 800,000 customers refuse to agree to the terms and conditions - and whether they may also have to expect termination.

At Postbank, a five-digit number of customers are said to be affected.

Other banks admit that they have also terminated customers, but do not want to give any figures.

And still others, for example Commerzbank, do not want to rule out terminations for the future.

BGH judgment causes frustration: changes to the terms and conditions must be approved

The reason for the banks’ actions is a judgment by the Federal Court of Justice in April 2021. According to this, financial institutions must obtain the express consent of their customers when changing the general terms and conditions (Az. XI ZR 26/20).

The Federal Association of Consumers (VZBV) had sued Postbank, which had raised prices several times.

Until the verdict, the financial institutions assumed that customers would agree if they did not object to a change within two months.

However, the judgment did not ensure legal peace: some banks now consider the continued use of an account to be approval – and are thus causing new trouble.

The banks are annoyed that a two-tier society could threaten customers - since stubborn refusal to pay general terms and conditions lower fees.

Incidentally, practice shows that they seldom risk a lot.

If you still agree to the terms and conditions after termination, this is usually accepted.

Because no bank really wants to lose customers.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-01-13

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