Serious looking Hans-Walter Peters on Monday in the round. Actually, he could look forward to. About the trust that one gives him. About the new task that lies before him. Finally Peters represents as president of the Banking Association’s sector since this week. The post as head lobbyist for the banks may be the peak of his career. But instead of expressing his joy, Peters must first answer a lot of tough questions. Because the banks are being criticized. They are accused of having helped clients to establish offshore companies in Panama.
Even Peters Institute, the Hamburg-based Berenberg Bank said to have been involved. 76 accounts should have opened the Swiss branch of his house for shell companies. This, however, Peters says nothing on Monday. Like his predecessors, he also wants to clarify the distinction: between the role of bankers and the association’s president. As the latter, he speaks only in general terms. And generally takes Peters the industry in protection. However, one could every sentence he says in general, be transferred to his institute.
“Tax evasion is not acceptable”
So Peters sees the banks are unjustly criticized. Just because they provide accounts for offshore companies, hot does not mean that they would assist in tax evasion. On the contrary. If one believes Peters, there is no such thing in the German houses. “Money laundering and tax evasion are not sustainable,” he says. “If there is misconduct, it must also be penalized.” Peters goes even further. “Once we have a suspicion is filed charges,” he says. “If a customer is no longer feasible, we will terminate the customer relationship.”
Next to him on the podium sits this morning his predecessor as Bank Association President: Jürgen Fitschen, Co-head of Deutsche Bank. His term at the association’s top expire as scheduled. In its place, the German Bank is represented on the board of the Association of the future John Cryan. As Peters has probably hoped another start, Fitschen may have wished for another farewell. For when the last official act, he must again do what he did in the three years as a bank association president repeatedly: defend itself and the industry. He defends himself against the accusation that the Institute could have helped clients in tax evasion. “It makes no sense that banks do such a thing,” he says. “We condemn this for years.”
As evidence Fitschen lists a number: 25,000 times had the German banks alone in 2014 reported to the authorities by itself a suspicion of money laundering. That’s twice as often as still 2012. Fitschen sees this as evidence that institutions have no interest in helping clients crooked transactions.
Schäuble wants tax fraud through shell companies stop
why the association supports, for example, measures against tax fraud through shell companies, the Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) has brought into play. he supported this plan “100 percent,” says Peters. Schäuble wants, among other things, a worldwide network registers for shell companies. The idea: Such a registry could be quickly recognized who the backers and when it is a company that is only used as a vehicle for tax evasion.
Peters likes that. “I’m incredibly happy when we have such an international database,” he says. This facilitates not only the authorities but also the banks work
However Schäuble know how Peters:. To create a such international registry will be a challenge. “For all global solutions,” says Schäuble evening when receiving the Association. Only with the implementation that was such a thing.
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