The regional savings bank associations want to make Bavaria's savings bank president Ulrich Reuter head of the nationwide lobby group.

At their meeting, the heads of the associations agreed by a large majority to propose the 60-year-old as a candidate for the office of President of the German Savings Banks and Giro Association (DSGV), the association announced on Monday. The new DSGV leadership is to be elected in the first quarter of 2023 and take office on January 1, 2024. Reuter is likely to have prevailed over the head of the Savings Banks Association of Westphalia-Lippe, Liane Buchholz. She has been rumored to be interested in the top DSGV job for years. The current DSGV President Helmut Schleweis (68) has headed the association since 2018.

In the savings banks camp, it was said that an opposing candidacy in the upcoming election was unlikely. It would be very unusual if Reuter did not get the job at the top of the association in Berlin, said an industry insider. Born in Aschaffenburg, he has only been President of the Bavarian Savings Banks Association since 2021. The fact that he is now to take over the nationwide top job after such a short time was apparently also a vote against Buchholz, according to the savings bank camp. Buchholz had already lost out at the end of 2017 when the association had to decide on a successor following the resignation of then DSGV President Georg Fahrenschon and then opted for Schleweis.

Reuter, who holds a doctorate in law, worked for Deutsche Bank from 1993 to 2001. From 2002 to 2020, he was District Administrator of the Aschaffenburg district. If Reuter moves to Berlin, he will have to deal even more with the future and stronger cooperation between the Landesbanks. He does not see any mergers of Landesbanks in the coming years, as he has repeatedly emphasized. Schleweis has been campaigning for years for a central institution in the public sector camp, but has also encountered resistance in his own ranks. The core of such a financial institution could be an integration of the savings bank-owned DekaBank with Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba). However, talks about a merger of the two institutions are currently on hold.

(Report by Marta Orosz and Klaus Lauer, edited by Kerstin Dörr. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)