Bundeskartellamt clears merger of savings banks in Lower Saxony

Today the Bundeskartellamt has cleared the merger between the savings banks Sparkasse Hildesheim, Sparkasse Goslar/Harz and Kreissparkasse Peine.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: "Although the business areas of the three savings banks directly border on each other, the savings banks have so far not engaged in competition, nor was this expected to happen in the future. Under the law of the federal state of Lower Saxony savings banks must have geographically defined business areas. Due to these legal provisions they cannot become active in the business areas of other savings banks. The merger could therefore be cleared as the conditions of competition will stay the same with or without it."

Under the savings banks law of Lower Saxony, the business areas of savings banks generally correspond to the areas governed by their owners, in most cases local authorities. For this reason savings banks are generally prohibited from opening branches and advertising outside their business areas. The investigations have revealed that there are in fact hardly any overlaps in the relevant business areas of the parties.

The merger affects several markets in the banking services sector, both in the private and business customers segments. The Bundeskartellamt defines some of these markets as regional markets. This applies above all to the personal current accounts market, but also to credit markets for business customers.

The investigations have shown that in many markets within their own business areas, the local savings banks have high market shares, some of them even exceeding the threshold above which dominance is presumed. However, as there are no overlaps, there is no addition of market shares.

Furthermore, the market survey revealed that in the Hildesheim/Goslar/Peine region the local Volks- und Raiffeisen (cooperative) banks, in particular, represent an alternative both for private and business customers as they offer the full range of banking services. Other alternatives for customers are banks that are active throughout the whole of Germany and banks that have no branches in the region concerned, e.g. direct banks.

On this background the merger could already be cleared in the so-called first phase following detailed investigation and examination.