Complaint to a bank or savings bank (Germany)
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This document is in German
The PDF you download is in German — that is the language it has to be filed in, so it is not translated. Everything on this page is here to tell you what it says.
A written complaint to your German bank or savings bank (Sparkasse) — about a faulty transfer, a card payment, charges, a blocked account, a loan or an investment. It sets out what happened and the remedy you want, and sets the time to answer: 15 business days for payment services, 35 in exceptional cases (§ 62 of the German Payment Services Supervision Act, ZAG). Complaining to the bank first is also the precondition for the banks' conciliation schemes — the private banks' Ombudsman, the Sparkassen body, the cooperative banks' BVR or the Bundesbank's conciliation body (§ 14 VSBG). In German.
What you fill in
The details the document asks for.
- Customer
- Customer's address
- Bank
- Address of the bank that holds the account
- City
- Date
- IBAN or contract number
- Customer number at the bank
- Product or contract (account, card, loan)
- Date of the transaction
- What the complaint is about
- Remedy requested
- Type of complaint (payment service or other banking service)
- Attachments
Preview
This document is produced for you. Your answers are typed into it and the finished PDF is yours to keep.
Common questions
- How quickly must a German bank answer a complaint?
- If the complaint concerns a payment service — a transfer, direct debit, card payment or the payment account — the bank must answer within 15 business days of receiving it. If it exceptionally cannot, it sends an interim reply giving the reasons, and the final answer must follow within 35 business days at most (§ 62 of the German Payment Services Supervision Act, ZAG). For other banking business the letter sets a deadline of four weeks.
- Which conciliation body do I turn to if a German bank does not resolve my complaint?
- It depends on the bank's group: private banks — the Ombudsman of the private banks at the Association of German Banks (BdB); Sparkassen — the conciliation body of the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV) or a regional one; cooperative Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken — the BVR's complaints office; for payment services of a bank with no scheme — the conciliation body at the Deutsche Bundesbank. The bank names its body on its website and in its terms. Our application against the bank is written for that step.
- Can I also complain to BaFin about a German bank?
- Yes. The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) accepts complaints in writing or text form where a bank breaches supervisory law (§ 4b of the Financial Services Supervision Act, FinDAG). It looks into the bank's conduct but does not get your money back. For a refund or compensation, go after your complaint to the bank to the conciliation body or to court; a complaint to BaFin can sit alongside that.
- Must I complain to a German bank before applying for conciliation?
- Yes. A consumer conciliation body refuses the case if you have not first raised the claim with the bank (§ 14 of the German Consumer Dispute Resolution Act, VSBG). This letter is that first step. No form is required; send it by post or through the online-banking mailbox, keep a dated copy and enclose evidence such as account statements. With the bank's answer — or once the deadline has passed without one — you apply for conciliation.
How you can sign this document
- Print it and sign by hand. The signature lines in the document are left blank on purpose — sign on them in ink.
- Sign it yourself with a qualified electronic signature. If you already hold a QES — Evrotrust, B-Trust, StampIT, ZealiD or any qualified provider on the EU Trusted List, on a card, a USB token, in a mobile app or in the cloud — our signing guide explains step by step how to sign this exact file without invalidating it. Step-by-step help, and a way to check it worked
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