Frequently asked questions

Your deposits are doubly insured with us. As a German bank, ProCredit Bank is subject to deposit guarantee regulations under German law. This means that your deposits are covered up to an amount of EUR 100,000 per person by the Entschädigungseinrichtung deutscher Banken GmbH (EdB) (German banks’ compensation scheme). Furthermore, we are also a member of the Einlagensicherungsfonds des Bundesverbandes deutscher Banken e. V. (Deposit Protection Fund of the Association of German Banks). Bearer bonds issued by the bank are not protected.

Previously, our terms and conditions stipulated that changes to conditions and prices did not require the explicit consent of our clients. Consent was deemed to have been granted if the amendments were not objected to within two months. This was stipulated in the General Terms and Conditions under No. 1(2) and No. 12(5). According to a current ruling issued by the German Federal Court of Justice on 27 April 2021, this procedure is no longer in effect. Therefore, we are now required to actively obtain your explicit consent, at least for certain changes.

You can access the e-Banking platform from our website: www.procreditbank.de (upper right corner – Login e-Banking). There, you can log in with your e-Banking alias and your e-Banking PIN. The first time you log into e-Banking, you will be prompted to change the PIN you received from us to one of your choosing. The e-Banking PIN must be at least eight characters long. Please use a combination of numbers and letters so that there are at least three of each in your PIN (e.g. 4Emu1602). The PIN is case-sensitive. Special characters are not permitted.

After you have applied for an account with us, we will provide an IBAN and e-Banking alias, which you can use as your login name. For security reasons, we will send you your e-Banking PIN a few days later.

You can change your e-Banking PIN at any time by going to “My control panel” under Settings in e-Banking.

Business clients can simply re-set their PIN via the log-in page to e-banking.
Private clients: Please hand in a signed note (as letter or scan) to re-set your e-banking PIN to deu.kundenservice@procredit-group.com. You can also call Customer Service at +49 69 719129-100 and have your Telephone PIN available.

We offer accounts for all persons of legal age (joint accounts are not permitted). To open a call money account, you need a current account in your name at another bank in Germany. This will be permanently designated as the reference account, and it will only be possible to transfer funds to this account online.

It is easy and convenient to manage your account with ProCredit Bank using our e-Banking system. You can also obtain information about your account or place specific orders by telephone. For verification purposes, you will be asked to enter your Telephone PIN, which you will receive with your e-Banking PIN.

You may only authorise one other person to access your account with ProCredit Bank. To do so, you will need to fill out the application for Power of Attorney, which can be found under “Forms” on our website; please send the completed and signed form to us by post. Prior to being granted access to your account, the person to be authorised must have their identity verified via the Postident/Videoident procedure. Please note that the person authorised to access your account may only execute transactions in writing and not via e-Banking or telephone.

To change your contact information, simply send us either a brief message or the completed and signed “Auftrag zur Änderung der Kontaktdaten” (Application to Change Contact Information) form, which can be found under “Forms” – in each case with a legally binding signature.

To change your reference account, please fill in and sign the “Auftrag zur Änderung des Referenzkontos” (Application to Change Reference Account) form, which can be found under “Forms”. Please note that when you change your reference account, the new account must always be a current account issued in your name with a German bank.

Yes, you can specify a joint account as the reference account.

At the end of each calendar year, an annual account statement (which is also an official balance statement) will be sent to your e-Banking mailbox. You can, of course, monitor your account transactions at any time via e-Banking.

To close your call money account, all we require is a legally binding, signed request to close the account (no special form required). You are not required to give prior notice to close your account.

Accrued interest is credited on 31 December of every year or when the account is closed.

You will not receive regular account statements for your term deposit account with ProCredit Bank. Instead, at the end of each year of investment, as well as the selected fixed term, you will receive a cumulative statement of account, which will be sent to your e-Banking mailbox.

The minimum investment amount for a term deposit account is EUR 5,000.

The interest will be credited to your call money account at the end of each year of investment.

Since the introduction of the flat rate withholding tax (Abgeltungsteuer) in Germany on 1 January 2009, all forms of capital investments are subject to tax at a uniform rate of 25% plus the solidarity surcharge; church tax is also deducted if applicable. All investment income that exceeds the general saver’s allowance is subject to this 25% tax. The general saver’s allowance is EUR 1,000 per person or EUR 2,000 for married couples/civil partnerships. We calculate withholding tax and solidarity surcharge automatically and then anonymously transfer the appropriate amount to the tax authorities. Flat rate withholding tax will only be deducted from interest income which exceeds the amount of the general saver’s allowance indicated in the exemption order (Freistellungsauftrag) and if no non-assessment certificate (Nichtveranlagungsbescheinigung) has been submitted.

Your exemption order authorises ProCredit Bank to exempt your investment interest income from automatic deduction of the withholding tax. If no exemption order is submitted, or if your interest income exceeds the legal maximum allowance, then the 25% interest income tax plus 5.5% solidarity surcharge and, if applicable, church tax will be transferred to the tax authorities. An exemption order is valid upon receipt by ProCredit Bank and can only be cancelled as of 31 December of a given year. You can specify that your exemption order be valid until further notice or instead limited to expire on 31 December of a given year. Should you close your account at ProCredit Bank, you are also required to submit a separate instruction to cancel your exemption order. Since 1 January 2011, exemption orders must include the tax identification number. To set up an exemption order for you, we need the completed and signed “Exemption order for investment income”, which you can download from our forms. The exemption order is valid for all accounts that you hold with ProCredit Bank.
Please note: If there is either no exemption order or an exemption order for an insufficient amount when a fixed-term deposit matures, then the amount of tax already transferred can no longer be taken into account retrospectively.
Please note that the exemption order becomes invalid under the following circumstances:
• Separation or divorce: If you have a joint exemption order, you are required to set up a new order – even if you are the sole executor of your account – because a separation or divorce renders the original order invalid.
• Name change/marriage: If you change your name, for example by marriage, you need to set up a new exemption order in your new name.
• Moving abroad: If you move abroad, your exemption order will become invalid, as you will no longer be fully subject to German income tax.

If you have accumulated interest earnings during a calendar year, you can view the amount credited as well as how much of your saver’s tax allowance has been used up by logging into e-Banking, going into “My control panel” and selecting “Tax information”.

To check whether church tax is deducted for you, log into e-Banking and select “My control panel” and “Tax information”.

Due to an amendment to the taxation law as of 1 January 2015, we now automatically transfer your church tax to the Tax Office (Finanzamt). You can therefore no longer apply for this at ProCredit Bank. Instead, we enquire about each client’s church tax status once a year at the Federal Central Tax Office (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern). Church tax status includes encrypted information about your membership in a religious denomination and the valid church tax rate. The enquiry is made annually during the period from 1 September to 31 October. If you wish to object to this procedure, you can do this directly with the Federal Central Tax Office. In this case, as a member of a taxable religious denomination, you are obliged to declare your church tax in your annual tax return.

Would you prefer that your church tax be collected by the tax office (Finanzamt) instead of by us? If so, by 30 June of a given year you can contact the Federal Central Tax Office (Bundeszentralamt für Steuern) and object to the forwarding of your church tax status. Under the heading “Kirchensteuer” (Church tax) you will find a form for this purpose (bzst.de). When you request that your status not be forwarded, the Federal Central Tax Office informs your responsible tax office of our failed enquiry. Your local tax office will then request that you submit a church tax declaration. Your request to not pass on your church tax status is valid until it is revoked by you.

The cut-off date for church tax status is 31 August. If you belong to a church on this day, then church tax will be deducted from your interest in the following calendar year. The same applies if you leave the church between 31 August and the end of the year. Any excess church tax deducted will be reimbursed with your income tax return. If you leave the church between the beginning of the year and 31 August, church tax will only be deducted until the end of the calendar year.

Your annual tax certificate will automatically be issued and placed in your e-Banking mailbox in January of each year.

Tax is always due at the time when interest is paid. If you have not submitted an exemption order (Freistellungsauftrag) to us, the tax is deducted immediately before the interest is credited to your account.

No, we only need to know about changes that affect your account details, such as a new company address, or changes relating to persons authorised to represent the company, etc.

After the validity period of the non-assessment certificate has ended, the bank is required to deduct withholding tax from any interest earned and transfer this directly to the tax authorities. The certificate is retained by the bank unless the client expressly requests that it be returned. The bank will not automatically notify the client that the non-assessment certificate has expired; the company itself is responsible for monitoring the validity of its own certificates.

This is not possible because of the restricted functions. No debit or credit cards are issued in connection with the account, and it is not possible to deposit or withdraw cash. We do not issue cheques and do not accept cheques for credit to your account. The account serves as a supplement to your main bank account for payment transactions.

Statements for business accounts are generally issued once a month. At the end of every quarter, you will regularly receive a statement of account. You can access the statements through your e-Banking mailbox. You can, of course, monitor your transactions at any time via e-Banking.

The statements will be delivered to your e-Banking mailbox, where you can view them, download them, print or save them to your hard drive at any time. If you manage your account exclusively via EBICS, we will send you the account statements by post.

To carry out transfers, you need a mobile transaction authentication number (mTAN). You will receive the numbers individually on your mobile phone for each transfer.

Your mTAN will be blocked for security reasons if you enter it incorrectly three times.

In this case, it is helpful to turn off the mobile phone, restart it and log out of e-Banking. Then log back in and enter the payment again. This generates a new mTAN.

The limit is set to EUR 50,000 by default and can be changed at any time by contacting us.

You can integrate your account into EBICS-based software.

You have the possibility of granting your employees different rights in e-Banking: enter payments, release payments, check account balances and turnovers, or be granted full rights.

SEPA transfers are free of charge.

The fee for a transfer to an account within the ProPay group is fixed and applies to each individual transfer regardless of the amount. Please refer to our price list and overview of services for the current fees.

The sender bears the costs of the transfer. Therefore, when executing a transfer, your account balance must be sufficient to cover at least the amount of the transfer plus the fee.

For cross-border transfers (in non-EEA countries) in EUR or USD, your payment goes through a network of correspondent banks that ensure your payment runs smoothly. The individual banks charge fees for processing, which are either deducted from the payment amount or charged to the originator of the payment. You, as the sender of the transfer, decide on the allocation of these fees.
BEN means that the payee bears all costs. They receive the amount remaining after all applicable fees have been deducted.
OUR means that you, as the originator of the payment, bear all costs. The amount you enter is paid out in full to the payee. Our fee and any fees charged by the banks involved in the transaction will be charged to you separately.
SHA means that the fees for the transfer are shared between the originator and the beneficiary. If you choose this option, we will charge you a fixed fee separately (which you can find in our list of prices and services). All fees charged by the other banks involved in the transfer will be deducted from the payment amount. Therefore, the beneficiary receives the payment amount minus these fees.

In this case, the payment will not be executed, and we will inform you via e-mail that your account does not have sufficient funds.

You can set up standing orders for SEPA transfers.

Standing orders cannot be changed. You must delete the existing order and set up a new order with the correct data.

If your account does not have sufficient funds on the payment date, the transaction will not be carried out and must be executed manually by you afterwards.

Transfers can be made in EUR and USD.

The BIC (SWIFT) must consist of 11 digits. If the beneficiary’s BIC consists of fewer characters, please fill in the remaining spaces with the letter "X”; for example, AAAARSBGXXX.

Please note the requirement to report separately according to the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance. If you have any questions, please contact the Deutsche Bundesbank hotline: 0800/1234 111 (toll-free, only available from landlines in Germany). Further information on reporting in foreign trade and payments is also available on the Bundesbank website.