Finanzwende
Bürgerbewegung Finanzwende is a registered association in Berlin that campaigns for fair, stable and sustainable financial markets in Germany and the European Union. Gerhard Schick founded it with other finance experts in September 2018, ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The association calls itself an independent and non-partisan counterweight to the financial lobby.
Finanzwende works on financial crime such as Cum-Ex, on bank supervision and financial stability, on consumer protection and on lobbying by the financial industry. A full-time team in Berlin writes studies and policy proposals and runs public campaigns. More than 20,000 supporting members pay most of the budget of the association.
Board and leadership
The board of Finanzwende has four members (in German): co-founder Gerhard Schick, Anne Brorhilker, Daniel Mittler and Sascha Müller. Gerhard Schick gave up his seat in the German Bundestag at the end of 2018 to build up the association. Daniel Mittler is the managing board member for campaigns, communication, fundraising and sustainable finance.
Anne Brorhilker was a senior public prosecutor in Cologne and investigated Cum-Ex deals before she moved to Finanzwende in 2024, where she leads the work on financial crime. Kevin Kühnert, the former general secretary of the SPD, has headed the division for taxes, distribution and lobbying since 2025. A supervisory board with seven members oversees the board of the association.
Members, funding and transparency
In 2025, about 19,277 supporting members paid for the work of Finanzwende, and membership fees made up about 63 percent of its income (in German). Donations added about 24 percent, and the association states that no single donor carries a significant share of its budget. About 58 percent of the budget goes to project and campaign work.
An auditing firm checks the accounts of Finanzwende in addition to the regular tax audit. The association is a member of the Initiative Transparente Zivilgesellschaft, whose members publish their sources of money and their governance.
Association, research company and office
Bürgerbewegung Finanzwende e. V. is the main organization, and Finanzwende Recherche gGmbH is its non-profit subsidiary for studies, policy proposals and public information on financial topics. In 2021 the association gave up its tax-exempt charitable status (in German) so that it can take political positions more freely. The office of the association is at Motzstraße 32 in 10777 Berlin, in the district of Schöneberg.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Germany
Position on the digital euro
Finanzwende calls for a quick introduction of the digital euro (in German) as a public good that is free of charge and open to everyone. The campaign argues that card and online payments in Europe often run through Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, all of them companies from the United States, and that banks try to weaken the project to protect their own revenue.
The association also wants strict rules for large technology firms that offer financial services, which would have to keep these services apart from their other business. The campaign addresses the German federal government and the European Parliament, and the legislation for the digital euro needs the approval of the Parliament and of the EU member states.
Cum-Ex and CumCum
CumCum deals moved German shares to domestic banks or tax-exempt investors around the dividend date so that a withholding tax refund could be claimed, and Finanzwende puts the damage in Germany from 2000 to 2020 at no less than 28.5 billion euro (in German). More than 327,000 people supported its campaign against shorter retention periods for records that can prove such deals. Finanzwende also follows the criminal cases on Cum-Ex, among them the case of the Warburg bank in Hamburg.
Finanzwende and Finance Loop
Finanzwende takes part in the debate on the digital euro, stablecoins and bank supervision in Germany as a civil society organization. Finance Loop members at banks, payment companies and supervisory authorities work on the same rules from the side of the institutions, for example on the holding limit of the digital euro and on the MiCA rules for stablecoins.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.