Banken: Warum Deutschlands Banken trotz Fortschritten im europäischen Vergleich hinterherhinken

Deutsche Banken are now significantly more resilient compared to a decade ago, with improved capital adequacy, liquidity, and risk quality following the financial and sovereign debt crisis. However, a new study by consulting firm Bearingpoint reveals weaknesses when compared to the European average. Bearingpoint analyzed the evolution of European financial institutions since 2013, finding that German banks have caught up in terms of efficiency, with the cost-income ratio (costs to earnings) dropping significantly between 2019 and 2025.

Currently at 54.8 percent, German institutions are nearly on par with the Benelux states, which have a ratio of 52.7 percent across Europe. Yet, Germany falls behind in profitability, with the equity return for domestic institutions at 8.6 percent in 2025, compared to 10.4 percent across Europe. Nordic countries and southern Europe boast bank return rates of 14 to 15.4 percent.

Bearingpoint experts attribute the German banks' underperformance to their unique market structure, consisting of savings banks, cooperative banks, and private banks, which, while deeply embedded in society, increase fixed costs that cannot easily be distributed through economies of scale. More concerning is the rise in problem credits, which increased by roughly 87 percent between 2019 and 2025.

While the problem credit ratio remains low at around 1.1 percent of the total balance sheet, the trend has changed: while other regions continue to reduce their charge-offs, Germany's issue is growing once again, primarily in commercial real estate and specialized property finance. The problem credit ratio for these sectors has risen from 0.85 to 4.09 percent of the balance sheet, while remaining nearly unchanged at around 0.8 percent for other German institutions.