| GEFA Bank GmbH | |
| Industry: | Bank |
| Foundation: | 1949 |
| Location: | Wuppertal |
| Key People: | Guido Zoeller (Chairman)Albrecht Haase (Management Spokesman)Martin Dornseiffer (Managing Director)Frederik Linthout (Managing Director) |
| Assets: | €7.434 Mio. [1] |
| Num Employees: | 673 |
| Parent: | Société Générale |
GEFA Bank GmbH is a financial services provider specialising in independent manufacturer sales and investment financing of mobile assets. The company was founded in 1949 as a subsidiary of the Deutsche Bank,[2] with its headquarters based in Wuppertal[3] at the Robert-Daum-Platz. It employs over 500 personnel in seven branches nationwide.
Since 2001, GEFA has belonged to the major international bank Société Générale and sells its products under the umbrella brand Société Générale Equipment Finance. Société Générale Equipment Finance is represented in 19 European countries as well as Brazil, China and the USA, with more than 100 branches.[4]
On May 23, 2016, the GEFA Gesellschaft für Absatzfinanzierung mbH and the GEFA-Leasing GmbH merged to form the GEFA Bank GmbH.[5] At the end of 2019, all branches, including the registered commercial branch in Berlin, were closed.
In the area of investment funding, the GEFA offers mostly middle-class clients the following products:[6]
Additionally, the GEFA supports manufacturers and dealers, both domestically and internationally, via the SG Equipment Finance Network. The network offers the following financing solutions:
In 2012 the GEFA started offering deposit banking to private customers, and started offering commercial deposit banking in 2014.
Funding in the form of loans is offered by GEFA for goods within the areas of transport (e.g. trucks, buses, business jets, riverboats, agricultural machinery), industrial production (e.g. construction machinery, printing machines, machine tools) and technology (e.g. hardware and software, office equipment, biomedical technology).
In 2015, the organisation generated a new business volume of €1,899 million, with €1,203 million in the transport sector, €435 million in the industrial goods sector and €261 million in the high tech sector.
The GEFA is subject to the legal deposit guarantee and is a member of the deposit protection fund of the Bundesverband deutscher Banken e.V.[7]
The brand GEFA Bank is affiliated with the cooperative data center of Fiducia IT AG in Karlsruhe and uses their agree21 banking software for IT operations. Additionally, an extensive and longstanding partnership exists with Paderborn-based company S&N.