ISACA Germany Chapter
ISACA Germany Chapter e. V. is the German professional association for IT auditors, information security managers and IT governance experts. The association is the German chapter of ISACA, the global association for IT audit, information security and governance, and with more than 4,000 members it is the fifth-largest ISACA chapter in the world.
Members of ISACA Germany Chapter work in internal and external audit, in information security management and in IT governance. The chapter prepares them for international certifications such as CISA and CISM and runs its own certificate program based on COBIT, the ISACA framework for governing enterprise IT, in which more than 8,000 people have passed an exam.
Seminars, certificates and CISA exam preparation
The seminar program of the chapter has courses for practitioners, courses for managers and preparation courses for the ISACA exams CISA, CISM, CRISC and CDPSE. The national certificates of the chapter cover cyber security, COBIT 2019, IT risk management, information security, IT audit and the audit of SAP systems. Many courses run online, and exam preparation courses also take place in person, for example in Munich.
For banks and insurers, the closest fit is the IT Regulatory Assurance Manager certificate, which covers the IT requirements of BaFin, EBA and EIOPA as well as the Digital Operational Resilience Act. In December 2025 the chapter added a practitioner course on AI governance to its program.
Expert groups and IT compliance in banking
Members of the chapter volunteer in expert groups on subjects such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, cyber security, data protection, IT audit and SAP. The chapter says that no other ISACA chapter has as many expert groups or as many volunteers working in them. The groups publish guides, studies and articles, many of them in the journal IT-Governance, which members receive in print.
The expert group for IT compliance in finance and insurance connects members from banks and insurers and deals with the regulatory requirements for information technology and information security. The group comments on new and revised rules and writes working aids for their implementation, including a paper on the core aspects of DORA and a process map of the BAIT of BaFin.
IT-GRC-Kongress, meetups and conferences
The IT-GRC-Kongress is the annual congress of the chapter on security, audit, governance, risk management and compliance, organized together with the publisher dpunkt.verlag. Each congress has two days with four parallel tracks and shared keynotes, and the annual general meeting of the chapter takes place on the evening of the first day. Its program covers AI in compliance, cyber security and the rules for the financial sector under NIS2, the EU AI Act and DORA.
The eleventh congress took place in Berlin in June 2026, after earlier editions in Cologne, Hamburg, Munich and Mannheim. Next to the congress the chapter runs meetups, online tech talks and SheLeadsTech, its initiative for women in cyber security and GRC, which started in 2022 under the name She@ISACA. The ISACA Europe Conference of the global association took place in Munich in October 2026.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Germany
President and board
Markus Gaulke, senior manager for IT advisory at KPMG in Frankfurt, is president of the association, and the current board took office in June 2026. The vice presidents are Thomas O. Englerth for certifications, Matthias Goeken for publications, Corinna Kulp for communication and marketing, Dirk Meissner for finance and administration and Sarah Richter for the expert groups. Matthias Goeken is a professor of business informatics at the Hochschule der Deutschen Bundesbank, and Corinna Kulp is a partner at BDO in Hamburg.
Tim Sattler, the previous president of the chapter, was appointed to the international board of directors of ISACA in July 2025. The office in Berlin is led by Anett Bolanz, who has supported the board and the expert groups since 2018.
Membership and annual fees
Membership in the German chapter always comes together with membership in the global association, and members register and pay their fees through ISACA itself. In the first calendar year the fee is 145 US dollars for ISACA plus 80 US dollars for the German chapter, and members who renew without a break pay 135 and 60 US dollars in the following years. People who join from June pay a reduced fee, and a membership that starts in August usually runs until the end of the following year.
Members get discounts on exam fees, seminars and conferences, receive the journal IT-Governance and the international ISACA Journal and can download the COBIT framework for free. In September 2022 the chapter introduced a scholarship program, and its Thesis Award of 1,000 euros goes to bachelor and master theses on IT governance, information security and IT risk management.
Office in Berlin and event cities
The office of the association is at Storkower Straße 158 in 10407 Berlin, where four staff members look after membership, seminars, expert groups and social media. The chapter was founded in Düsseldorf in 1986 as the German Chapter of the EDP Auditors Association and took its current name in 1994. Its events take place across Germany, with expert group conference days in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt and meetups in cities such as Frankfurt and Hamburg.
ISACA Germany Chapter and Finance Loop
IT auditors and information security managers in banks review the systems that Finance Loop members build and run, from cloud outsourcing under DORA to AI models in lending. Finance Loop discusses these questions at its events, where Risk & Compliance is one of the four content tracks.
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.