In 1994, the Commerzbank desired to expand its business and customer base and therefore decided to establish a direct bank.[6] Commerzbank founded Comdirect, which was registered in December 1994 as a private limited company (GmbH - Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung).[7] It began operations with 50 employees and 50 million Deutsche Mark on equity in January 1995.[8] The company positioned itself not as a traditional direct bank like seen before, but instead as a universal bank for private customers with a wide range of specialized products.[9] One of the first products of the Comdirect Bank was a money market account. Also, securities trading became one of the top priorities.[10]
Public offering
Within the first few months, the Comdirect Bank gained tens of thousands of customers.[11] In the late 1990s, the Comdirect Bank expanded to other European countries.[12] The Commerzbank and Deutsche Telekom agreed on the cooperation of their subsidiaries, the Comdirect Bank and T-Online International.[13] Comdirect Bank became a public company (Aktiengesellschaft) in November 1999 and went public in June 2000.[7][5] Commerzbank sold a minority stake in the company.[14] The stock was oversubscribed several times and later became part of the Nemax 50 index and the Prime Standard of Frankfurt Stock Exchange.[15][16] The proceeds of the initial public offering were used to build the investment banking of the Comdirect Bank, for example.[17] The company doubled its workforce to cope with the growing number of customers.[18]
Consolidation
In 2000, the burst of the dot-com bubble hit the financial industry. The Comdirect Bank was also affected and as a result, growth slowed.[19][20] After several successful years, the bank announced losses in 2001.[21] As the Comdirect Bank slipped into financial difficulties, the board launched a savings program.[22] At the end of 2001, the Comdirect Bank announced to focus on Germany and the United Kingdom. The company places its loss-making branches at disposal; the subsidiaries in France and Italy were sold and closed.[23][24] Finally, in 2004, the Comdirect Bank sold its British subsidiary, too.[25]
From then on, the Comdirect Bank exclusively focused on its home market in Germany.[26] The company accelerated the expansion of its product range and, in particular, cared more about customer advisory services.[27] The new strategy stabilized the business.[28] The first dividend was distributed in 2004 and in 2005,[29] the German retail banking of American Express was acquired, which helped to grow the customer base significantly.[30]
To profit more from the performance of the Comdirect Bank, the Commerzbank increased its investment to almost 80% in June 2005.[31] The group purchased the remaining share from T-Online International.[32]
Acquisitions
Even during the global financial crisis from 2007, the business remained stable; the Comdirect Bank profited from the increase in transactions in securities trading.[33]
In 2009, the Comdirect Bank acquired the European Bank for Financial Services (ebase) from the Commerzbank,[34] doubling the number of managed securities accounts.[35] At the same time, the bank extended its position in financial services and asset management.[35] During the following years, the Comdirect Bank repositioned the European Bank for Financial Services as a business-to-business bank.[36] In July 2018, comdirect agreed to sell ebase to London-based financial technology provider FNZ Group to focus more on the core business and completed the sale in July 2019.[37][38]
In 2016, the Comdirect Bank announced the acquisition of the Onvista Group.[39] Both the Onvista Bank and Onvista Media, operator of a high-reach financial portal, became part of the Comdirect Bank.[40] With this investment, the Comdirect Bank strengthened securities trading and financial information business at the same time.[41] While the Onvista Bank merged with the Comdirect Bank, Onvista Media continued operations as a subsidiary.[42]
Digitalization
In recent years, the Comdirect Bank invested heavily in digital technologies. For example, the company published the first online bankingapp with support for accounts from other institutions.[43] It launched the "startup garage" for financial technology startups.[44][45] The company was the first bank in Germany to publish an Amazon Alexa skill, for example, and later added support for Google Home.[46] The Comdirect Bank also launched a robo-advisor named Cominvest.[47]
In late 2019, Commerzbank entered into talks with Petrus Advisers to buy its 7.5% stake in Comdirect and take over the entire online bank.[48]
Structure
Onvista Media is a subsidiary of Comdirect bank in Germany.[40]
Products
comdirect bank offers current accounts, online brokerage and several types of credits and loans.[49][50][51][52]
Responsibility
In 2009, the Comdirect Bank and the Stuttgart Stock Exchange founded the Stiftung Rechnen, a non-profit foundation with a registered office in Hamburg and headquarters in Quickborn.[53] Its primary goal is to support knowledge of mathematics with a focus on young peogle to encourage a joy of numbers and calculation.[54]Johanna Wanka, former Federal Minister of Education and Research, is the patron of the Stiftung Rechnen;[55]Christian Rach, a star-rated chef and author, is one of its prominent ambassadors.[56]
Controversies
The Comdirect Bank accidentally reported 200 million euros to an account of a customer in 2012.[57] The bank justified the error with a technical problem on the sale of funds, which could not be seen before.[58] After the reversal, there was a negative balance, which caused lending rates that the Comdirect Bank had to reimburse.[59]
In 2016, a breakdown occurred after a software update:[60] A small number of customers of the Comdirect Bank were able to view account balances of other customers for a very short time.[61] However, third parties were not able to do wire transfers.[62] Though there was no financial or material damage, the company regretted the mistake, apologized to all affected customers and informed them about the extent of third-party access.[63][64]
Since 2017, the bank is being targeted by activist investor Petrus Advisers. The investor is questioning the cost structure (cost-income-ratio is over 70%), the governance and incentive structure, and the management quality among others.[65][66]
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€70.723 million (2018)
