German Public Banks
Public banks in Germany are financial institutes, typically held directly or indirectly by the public sector, e.g. the federal government, the states, administrative districts or cities. Not all companies are fully publicly owned. They can also be defined as public by providing services out of a public interest.
The public banks are represented through the Association of German Public Sector Banks as one of the leading associations in the German banking industry. The association counts 34 ordinary members, but to distinguish the different groups of public banks it is important to know, that the Landesbanken as part of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe described below, are also members of this association.
The typical public bank acts as business development bank (Förderbank, Aufbaubank or Investitionsbank) or international project, infrastructure and export financing institution. Most known representatives of this group are the KfW-Group, the NRW.Bank in NorthRhine-Westphalia, the LfA Förderbank Bayern in Bavaria and the L-Bank, Staatsbank für Baden-Wuerttemberg in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The Group of public development banks manage assets of EUR 880,9 billion. In total, 13.000 people work for the various institutions. (December 2010)
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