The Bundeskartellamt has cleared the merger of the two central banks in the German cooperative banking sector, DZ BANK AG (Frankfurt) and WGZ BANK AG (Düsseldorf). The cooperative banks are shareholders of the central bank to which they have affiliated themselves.

The merger had already been examined and cleared by the Bundeskartellamt in 2009 but the banks did not implement the merger at that time. On account of the time that had passed, the project had to be notified and examined again.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: "Both banks act predominantly as service providers for the cooperative banks affiliated to them. They offer central banking services such as, in particular, management, processing and consulting services and provide IT infrastructure. Our investigations again showed that the cooperative banks largely obtain these services either from DZ BANK or from WGZ BANK. Once affiliated to one of the two banks, they did not switch to the other nor did they contemplate such a switch."

The above services can also be obtained from a provider outside the cooperative banking sector. It is therefore not to be expected that competition conditions will significantly deteriorate on account of the merger.

In addition, DZ BANK and WGZ BANK also offer financial products and services to customers. On the relevant markets for these products and services (in particular the markets for corporate banking, real estate and construction loans, financial market services and investment banking) they face direct competition from a large number of other providers from outside the cooperative banking sector.