The Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV,) is the association of German savings banks (German: Sparkassen) and the apex entity of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the European Union's second-largest financial services group (after BNP Paribas) with 2.4 trillion euros combined assets as of end-2021. Germany's savings banks, owned by local governments, play a major role in the country's economy, together operating some 15,860 branches and employing about 284,800 people.[1]
German savings banks started organizing on a regional basis in the 1870s and early 1880s, e.g. the German: Verband der Sparkassen in Rheinland und Westfalen und Sparkassenzeitung, est. 1881. The first national conference of savings banks (German: Deutscher Sparkassentag) was held in 1882. on, the first national umbrella organization was established as the German: Deutscher Sparkassenverband in Dortmund. In 1892, it was agreed that the German: Deutscher Sparkassenverband would be an "association of associations" whose members would not be individual savings banks, but rather regional associations thereof (German: Sparkassenverbände). By 1911, fifteen such German: Sparkassenverbände had been established, covering all the country's savings banks.
on during World War I, the German: Deutscher Zentralgiroverband was established to coordinate the regional payments clearing houses or German: Giroverbände that had appeared since 1908.
The DSGV was founded in 1924 by the merger of German: Deutscher Sparkassenverband and German: Deutscher Zentral-Giroverband, with seat in Berlin. It simultaneously absorbed the German: Deutscher Verband der Kommunalen Banken, a separate organization in Königsberg.
In 1947, after de facto separation from their Eastern German peers and central organization in East Berlin, the savings banks and regional associations in West Germany formed the German: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverbände und Girozentralen as their new national organization. In 1953, it was restructured as the German: Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband e.V., with head office in Bonn. Unlike the prior DSGV in Berlin, it was not a public corporation (German: Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts, abbreviated as ö.K.) but a non-profit association (German: eingetragener Verein, abbreviated e.V.).
Following German reunification, the DSGV relocated from Bonn to Berlin in 1999.
In April 2011, DSGV took control of DekaBank, buying a 50 percent stake from the Landesbanken, public sector banks such as HSH Nordbank, WestLB and that stumbled badly during the financial crisis. After years of subsidising the activities of the Landesbank sector, savings banks have been more assertive about ending the Wall Street-style ambitions of some of these regional lenders.[2]