CEO Heiko Beck has to leave after a booking glitch

CEO Heiko Beck and CFO Martin Zoller are leaving the institute, which is jointly owned by savings banks and cooperative banks. One trigger was a breakdown costing 61 million euros.

Frankfurt. The German Securities Service Bank (DWP) is replacing two thirds of its board of directors after  a booking mishap costing 61 million euros  . CEO Heiko Beck and Chief Financial and Risk Officer Martin Zoller have decided to leave DWP Bank, the institute announced on Monday. The supervisory board complied with this wish.

DWP Bank is jointly owned by the German savings banks and cooperative banks. The institute processes securities transactions for numerous financial institutions and takes care of the safekeeping of the papers. It is therefore of great importance for the entire German banking sector.

After the booking mishap at the end of 2022, the financial regulator Bafin started a special audit of DWP Bank and found serious deficiencies. Some shareholders have therefore been pushing for a separation from CEO Beck for a long time and have already started exploring who could succeed him in 2023, as the Handelsblatt exclusively reported in August 2023 . However, the bank said at the time that no personnel changes were planned on the DWP board.

The booking mishap was not only investigated by the financial supervisory authority Bafin, but also by the internal audit department and the consulting firm Deloitte, which was commissioned by the board of directors and supervisory board, said a spokesman. “All reports come to the conclusion that the erroneous stock exchange transaction came about due to an atypical constellation of several unfavorable external factors.”

At the time, CEO Beck made it clear in a conversation with the Bloomberg news agency that he saw no need for personnel consequences. “There is no reason for personnel law or criminal law measures in the DWP Bank, as the contributing reasons were primarily at the process and control level.”

Potential successor canceled at short notice

However, according to financial circles, many shareholders saw a need for action. In addition to the booking mishap, they complain, among other things, that the DWP did not make as quick progress as hoped with the development of an infrastructure for processing crypto transactions. DZ Bank announced this week that it will work with the Stuttgart Stock Exchange on its crypto offering for private customers of Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken – and not with DWP Bank.

A DWP spokesman did not want to comment on the criticism of Beck or the search for a new CEO. According to financial circles, DWP Bank actually wanted to sign former Commerzbank IT boss Jörg Hessenmüller as his successor. However, this was then canceled at short notice, as the “Platow Brief” previously reportedhad.