DZ BANK is the second-largest commercial bank in Germany and the central institution in the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Cooperative Financial Network. It is the central institution for the about 700 cooperative banks in Germany, which between them hold the majority of its shares. Under the tagline ‘DZ BANK. Die Initiativbank’, it supports the business of the independent cooperative banks in their regions with the aim of strengthening their competitiveness. The combination of local customer knowledge and central product expertise has proved to be highly effective.

DZ BANK’s range of products and services extends from classic and innovative products, structuring, and issues, to trading and sales in the equity and bond markets. DZ BANK also acts as a corporate bank for businesses and institutions. It maintains branches and representative offices in key economic regions around the globe, helping businesses to further their international activities.

DZ BANK also acts as a holding company for the entities in the DZ BANK Group, each of which has its own strong brand and constitutes a key pillar in the range of financial products and services offered by the Cooperative Financial Network.

DZ BANK aims to offer high quality not only for its customers, but also for its employees. With this in mind, it has its performance as an employer reviewed by third parties on an ongoing basis. It has won the Leading Employer Germany award for several years in succession and has held the auditberufundfamilie® certificate for its life-stage-oriented HR policies since 2007.

The bank has been recognized as a kununu Top Company three times in succession by employer review platform kununu thanks to the exceptionally good reviews that it has received from employees and job applicants. DZ BANK received the Most Wanted Start award for training, developed by kununu and publishing group ZEIT, for the first time in 2023. And for almost 20 years now, the bank has been a recipient of the Fair Company award from Handelsblatt in recognition of its training, study, and development programs.

R+V Versicherung is one of the leading insurance companies in Germany. Based in Wiesbaden, R+V enjoys the trust of around nine million customers, who have insured some 27.5 million risks.

It forms part of the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Cooperative Financial Network and offers innovative, tailored insurance solutions. The product range encompasses all established types of insurance. For retail customers, R+V offers bespoke insurance and pension solutions. In its corporate business, R+V is traditionally closely associated with SMEs operating in industry, commerce, skilled trades, agriculture, and other areas of small and medium-sized business activity, and develops specific risk mitigation strategies for these businesses. R+V also takes on inward reinsurance business around the globe.

R+V’s significant financial strength has been constantly reaffirmed by leading rating agencies. For instance, Fitch Ratings again gave R+V Lebensversicherung AG an AA rating (very strong). Among Germany’s life insurance companies, R+V Lebensversicherung AG thus continues to have one of the best ratings from Fitch. R+V has received a Top Employer Germany award and holds the Fair Company seal of approval. It also regularly occupies some of the top spots in numerous product ratings.

Furthermore, R+V is committed to sustainability and has an environmental management system certified by TÜV Rheinland.

The Union Investment Group has been a dependable partner to retail and institutional investors for more than 66 years. Union Investment, the expert for asset management in the Cooperative Financial Network, prides itself on the partnership and professionalism that it demonstrates in its services. Around 5.8 million investors rely on Union Investment’s considerable experience and have entrusted assets of €455.2 billion to its management, making it one of Germany’s leading providers. With 1,337 funds under its management, Union Investment offers solutions in the following areas: equity funds, fixed-income funds, multi-asset funds, money market funds, funds of funds, and open-ended real estate funds.

Union Investment works closely with its partners in the more than 7,000 branches of the local cooperative banks to provide retail investors with investment solutions that are tailored to their individual circumstances, ranging from private pensions and savings in regular installments to long-term capital accumulation using, for example, equity funds, multi-asset funds, and sustainability-oriented funds. Assets under management of around €218 billion make Union Investment the German market leader in solutions for retail investors.

As an experienced risk manager, Union Investment provides domestic and international institutional investors with asset management concepts and sustainable investment solutions. In Germany, it is the second-largest partner to institutional investors such as corporations, banks, insurers, pension funds, and charitable foundations, for which it manages some €237.2 billion.

The company has a long track record in fund management. The complexities of the capital market environment call for intensive dialogue that is underpinned by a strong team approach. Fund managers adhere to the code of conduct for the investment fund sector, thereby undertaking to treat their investors’ capital responsibly. Union Investment has won a number of awards from independent organizations that bear testimony to the high quality of its services.

DZ HYP is one of Germany’s leading real estate and Pfandbrief banks and the center of excellence for public-sector customers in the Cooperative Financial Network. The bank serves corporate, retail, and public-sector customers. It does business with customers directly and as a partner to the local cooperative banks.

In its different lines of business, DZ HYP offers its partners and customers a wide range of financing solutions that are tailored to their needs and current market conditions. The resulting opportunities are pursued in collaboration with the local cooperative banks. Providing a network of support for the local cooperative banks is a core aspect of DZ HYP’s sales activities. A broad, decentralized structure and close proximity to its customers enable DZ HYP to assist the local banks with their regional marketing.

In its corporate customer business, DZ HYP has its own direct business and also acts as a partner to the local cooperative banks. Customers in this area include commercial real estate investors and companies in the housing sector. DZ HYP focuses on real estate finance in the German market. Its target customers are investors, project developers, building contractors, and the housing sector. As part of the Cooperative Financial Network, DZ HYP also works closely with local cooperative banks in its retail customer business, where the product portfolio includes initial and follow-up finance for new builds, purchases, and modernization/renovation. Most of this business is brokered by the local cooperative banks. As the Cooperative Financial Network’s center of excellence for public-sector customers, DZ HYP helps the local cooperative banks to develop their business across Germany with local authorities and with their legally dependent enterprises, local associations, and institutions governed by public law. The core element of this business is the awarding of loans to public-sector entities and short-term loans to local authorities.

The bank has locations across Germany: its two headquarters in Hamburg and Münster, six real estate centers in Germany’s main commercial hubs (Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, and Munich), and further regional offices.

DZ PRIVATBANK is the Cooperative Financial Network’s center of excellence for private banking and a partner to the local cooperative banks for variable lending business denominated in euros and other currencies under the LuxCredit brand. It is also a major player in the international asset servicing market. Headquartered in Luxembourg and with eight locations in Germany plus the DZ PRIVATBANK Schweiz subsidiary in Switzerland, DZ PRIVATBANK combines proximity to its customers with international expertise.

DZ PRIVATBANK has been pursuing a strategy of very rapid growth since 2019. Its success in doing so can be seen from its profit before taxes, which has improved markedly from a loss before taxes of €151 million to a profit before taxes of over €80 million in 2023. Moreover, it has achieved a significant increase in the value created for the local cooperative banks, which exceeded €126 million in the reporting year. This equates to growth of more than 55 percent compared with 2018.

In the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Cooperative Financial Network, VR Smart Finanz is the network partner for simple solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises. It thus specializes in the provision of quick and convenient financing solutions tailored to regional SMEs and the cooperative banks’ small-business and self-employed customers. The product range encompasses leasing, hire purchase, and loans, plus digital services that help business customers to manage their day-to-day finances, such as support for invoicing and bookkeeping or for checking and improving their own credit rating.

VR Smart Finanz’s strengths lie in reliable, digitally supported, and automated financing decisions made within just a few minutes. For example, ‘VR Smart flexibel’ is a business lending product that provides instant financing up to a sum of €100,000 and can be arranged entirely online via online banking or on selected Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken websites. ‘VR Smart express’ is a hire purchase solution offering financing up to €250,000, whereby the decision on whether to grant the financing is made during the meeting with the customer. In summer 2023, VR Smart Finanz also began offering the hire purchase solution ‘VR Smart express Eco’ for financing investment in sustainability-oriented assets in the fields of electric vehicles, renewable power generation, and reduction of carbon emissions.

VR Smart Finanz sees itself as a sustainable company that lives up to its responsibilities toward business partners, employees, and the environment. Along with other entities in the DZ BANK Group, it has committed itself to the sustainable development goals of the UN Global Compact and to a groupwide climate strategy. VR Smart Finanz is also certified as an ÖKOPROFIT® organization in the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region.

Offering easyCredit in Germany and ‘der faire Credit’ in Austria, TeamBank AG is the center of excellence for liquidity management in the cooperative banks.

In total, over 90 percent of all German cooperative banks have partnered with TeamBank, which is based in Nuremberg. In Austria, it works with all Volksbank institutions and about half of the Raiffeisenbank institutions.

TeamBank offers integrated, innovative products and services, providing customers with fully digitalized solutions and thus easy access to liquidity wherever they are and whenever they want.

With its seamless cross-media payment process ‘easyCredit-ratenkauf’, TeamBank also offers tailored embedded finance solutions for merchants.

Schwäbisch Hall is the largest German building society, with more than 7 million contracts. It is also one of Germany’s leading home finance providers. It has been firmly anchored in the cooperative banking sector since it was established in 1931. A network partner to the cooperative banks and part of the DZ BANK Group, Schwäbisch Hall offers its customers solutions for sustainable homes and housebuilding. The cooperative banks can obtain an extensive range of financing solutions from Schwäbisch Hall, including home savings, home finance, and government support programs. The building society has around 6,400 inhouse and field staff, who provide Schwäbisch Hall customers with expert advice and support. Since the founding of the post-war Federal Republic of Germany, Schwäbisch Hall has helped to finance more than 9 million home purchases, refurbishments and modernizations.

In addition to the further development of its core home savings and home finance businesses, Schwäbisch Hall is working on areas that offer promise for the future and finding ways of dealing with challenges such as platformization, smart data, and ecosystems. BAUFINEX, for example, is the cooperative online marketplace for independent brokers and is one of the top-three B2B platforms in the market for consumer home finance. As well as omnichannel and smart data strategies, Schwäbisch Hall is also focusing on digital sales channels through its subsidiary Schwäbisch Hall Wohnen (SHW). The subsidiary Impleco enables Schwäbisch Hall to tap into the homes and housebuilding ecosystem, in which it intends to unlock further business opportunities for the cooperative banks. Schwäbisch Hall Transformation (sht) provides regional banks and selected third-party companies with advice on digital and environmental transformation and helps them to make this transition.

Sustainability is firmly enshrined in Schwäbisch Hall’s strategic agenda. The company is supporting its customers with their sustainable housebuilding and home projects and attaches a high priority to the responsible use of resources, both in the workplace and in banking operations. In line with the cooperative principles, Schwäbisch Hall is also fulfilling its responsibilities as a corporate citizen in its local region. Moreover, Schwäbisch Hall is an award-winning employer and has achieved a top-ten spot in the overall ranking across all industries in the Top Employer competition for many years.