Finanzmarktkrise und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des deutschen Bankensektors

The German banking sector has weathered the global financial and economic crisis relatively well, apart from the highly speculative big banks and the non-banked state banks. Even though the low interest rate following the crisis has had a negative impact on net interest, the entire German banking sector was able to generate net income before taxes of nearly 326 billion euros (annual average 18.1 billion euros) from 2000 to 2017. Of these, the public savings banks have incorporated 120 billion euros, this is most of the profits, followed by the Volksbanks with almost 84 billion euros. Together, savings banks and Volksbanks earned a 62.7 percent share of the total banking sector. By contrast, the big banks are realizing „only“ almost 31 billion euros between 2000 and 2017, or a profit share of 9.5 percent. By far the largest German bank, Deutsche Bank, was able to recoup a total of 56 billion euros in profit before tax from 2000 to 2017, which means that the other major banks together had to cope with a loss of 25 billion euros during the same period. The high profits in the banking sector despite the economic crisis have, in principle, little to do with a market-driven competitive situation. However, the profits are relative to the low capital employed. The pre-tax return on equity between 2000 and 2017 in the German banking sector as a whole fluctuates between –7.4 percent (2008) and 12.9 percent (2005). Noticeably high here are the profit rates of the savings banks with values of 27.4 percent (2011) and 16.4 percent (also 2011) at the Volksbanks. Compared to the German economy as a whole, the return values in the banking sector are, of course, much lower because the profits of the financial sphere are. After the crisis is before the crisis. It is true that the banking sector has been subject to greater state control, which, however, only combats the symptoms of the crisis and not the cause of the crisis, which is a neoliberal change from labor to capital. As a result, a steadily growing dangerous shadow banking sector could emerge which, without any state controls, absorbs in a speculative manner the added value of reallocated capital gains. If the decisive redistribution in the producing economy is not finally reversed in a significant increase in the wage share and by a corresponding state taxation of completely unevenly distributed assets, thus eliminating the cause of the crisis, the next serious financial and economic crisis is not far away