German banker admits transferring money from rich to help poorer clients | Hacker News Reader

German banker admits transferring money from rich to help poorer clients

guardian.co.uk

13 pointsenvitar8 comments

A bit ironic, as the entire premise of a bank is essentially to do this, but regulated, on a larger scale.

Assuming it was really a loan.

The judge notes "large losses". Banks have a fiduciary duty to safeguard the deposits of their depositors. At least some of the people to whom she provided the loans and did not meet the criteria of the internal lending criteria should not have gotten them. She stole money she didn't have. I get that desperate people do desperate things but she wasn't desperate - in fact, she was a senior banker who was entrusted with access to millions in deposits.

That woman is nothing more than a crook - "helper syndrome"? Really? If she was so moved to help the disadvantaged why didn't she use her own money?

She didn't give money - she loaned it.

She basically loaned money from the rich to the poor, without asking the rich first. I assume everyone got payed back, but the article does not say.

The judge suggests that at least some of the loans were never repaid: "It's difficult to find an appropriate punishment here. On the one hand we have big losses. But on the other hand we have here this altruistic behaviour, which makes the case very different from the norm."

Well, exactly. It's like your landlord telling you one of their deadbeat friends was crashing on your sofa whether you like it or not.

Im more curious about how many bank accounts are out there with 6 figure + sums in them which haven't been touched for years.

Equally makes you wonder how many of the banks are enjoying profits from such accounts when clearly it must be suspected that they are dodgy / tarnished or criminal in some way.

In Germany, many people don't trust investing their money - even in sure state bonds. Most of this money is inherited money or lifelong hard saved money. Also, many people got rich just because they happened to own land on a now urban area. Criminality is pretty low in Germany. So the case exposed in this article that many people have money seems normal to me.

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