Comdirect Bank

Foundation

In 1994, the Commerzbank desired to expand its business and customer base and therefore decided to establish a direct bank.^[6] Commerzbank founded Comdirect, which was registered in December 1994 as a private limited company (GmbH - Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung).^[7] It began operations with 50 employees and 50 million Deutsche Mark on equity in January 1995.^[8] The company positioned itself not as a traditional direct bank like seen before, but instead as a universal bank for private customers with a wide range of specialized products.^[9] One of the first products of the Comdirect Bank was a money market account. Also, securities trading became one of the top priorities.^[10]

Public offering

Within the first few months, the Comdirect Bank gained tens of thousands of customers.^[11] In the late 1990s, the Comdirect Bank expanded to other European countries.^[12] The Commerzbank and Deutsche Telekom agreed on the cooperation of their subsidiaries, the Comdirect Bank and T-Online International.^[13] Comdirect Bank became a public company (Aktiengesellschaft) in November 1999 and went public in June 2000.^[7][5] Commerzbank sold a minority stake in the company.^[14] The stock was oversubscribed several times and later became part of the Nemax 50 index and the Prime Standard of Frankfurt Stock Exchange.^[15][16] The proceeds of the initial public offering were used to build the investment banking of the Comdirect Bank, for example.^[17] The company doubled its workforce to cope with the growing number of customers.^[18]

Consolidation

In 2000, the burst of the dot-com bubble hit the financial industry. The Comdirect Bank was also affected and as a result, growth slowed.^[19][20] After several successful years, the bank announced losses in 2001.^[21] As the Comdirect Bank slipped into financial difficulties, the board launched a savings program.^[22] At the end of 2001, the Comdirect Bank announced to focus on Germany and the United Kingdom. The company places its loss-making branches at disposal; the subsidiaries in France and Italy were sold and closed.^[23][24] Finally, in 2004, the Comdirect Bank sold its British subsidiary, too.^[25]

From then on, the Comdirect Bank exclusively focused on its home market in Germany.^[26] The company accelerated the expansion of its product range and, in particular, cared more about customer advisory services.^[27] The new strategy stabilized the business.^[28] The first dividend was distributed in 2004 and in 2005,^[29] the German retail banking of American Express was acquired, which helped to grow the customer base significantly.^[30]

To profit more from the performance of the Comdirect Bank, the Commerzbank increased its investment to almost 80% in June 2005.^[31] The group purchased the remaining share from T-Online International.^[32]

Acquisitions

Even during the 2008 financial crisis, the business remained stable; the Comdirect Bank profited from the increase in transactions in securities trading.^[33]

In 2009, the Comdirect Bank acquired the European Bank for Financial Services (ebase) from the Commerzbank,^[34] doubling the number of managed securities accounts.^[35] At the same time, the bank extended its position in financial services and asset management.^[35] During the following years, the Comdirect Bank repositioned the European Bank for Financial Services as a business-to-business bank.^[36] In July 2018, comdirect agreed to sell ebase to London-based financial technology provider FNZ Group to focus more on the core business and completed the sale in July 2019.^[37][38]

In 2016, the Comdirect Bank announced the acquisition of the Onvista Group.^[39] Both the Onvista Bank and Onvista Media, operator of a high-reach financial portal, became part of the Comdirect Bank.^[40] With this investment, the Comdirect Bank strengthened securities trading and financial information business at the same time.^[41] While the Onvista Bank merged with the Comdirect Bank, Onvista Media continued operations as a subsidiary.^[42]

Digitalization

In recent years, the Comdirect Bank invested heavily in digital technologies. For example, the company published the first online banking app with support for accounts from other institutions.^[43] It launched the "startup garage" for financial technology startups.^[44][45] The company was the first bank in Germany to publish an Amazon Alexa skill, for example, and later added support for Google Home.^[46] The Comdirect Bank also launched a robo-advisor named Cominvest.^[47]

In late 2019, Commerzbank entered into talks with Petrus Advisers to buy its 7.5% stake in Comdirect and take over the entire online bank.^[48]