Commerzbank AG

Statement on Commerzbank's Banking License

When the new German Banking Act (KWG) was enacted in 1961 to replace the Banking Act of 1934, Commerzbank AG already conducted in particular those activities which require a banking license pursuant to Sections 1 and 32 KWG as a full service universal bank. For such cases, the new Act itself has granted the license instead of requiring a written document (Sec.  61). Subsequent amendments to the Banking Act which introduced a license requirement for additional activities followed the same concept and granted the license for existing activities in the Act itself (Sec. 64e and 64f), if they have been conducted by a bank with both deposit and lending business (like Commerzbank AG). The only exception are the investment fund business (which must be conducted in a separate legal entity), the issuance of Pfandbriefe (which is a business that had been reserved to mortage banks and public sector banks until the Pfandbrief Act of 22 May 2005 came into force and therefore could not be conducted by Commerzbank AG) and acting as central counterparty. Therefore, no certificate with the license of Commerzbank AG exists because it is contained in the German Banking Act directly.

Additionally, pursuant to Article 14 of the Directive 2006/48/EC, the European Commission regularly draws up a list of all banks which are licensed in a Member State and publishes such list in the Official Journal of the European Union, Part C. This list is based on information received from the competent authorities of the EU Member States and provides a useful tool to verify the license of a bank based in the EU.

The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht BaFin) maintains a data base of all banks and financial services providers licensed in Germany on the BaFin's website.