SoFFin - Bundesanstalt für Finanzmarktstabilisierung: Startseite

The financial crisis has highlighted the need to add suitable provisions to existing insolvency legislation in order to provide an adequate response when systemically important financial institutions find themselves in distress. Through the Restructuring Act, lawmakers have created the necessary legal instruments for restructuring and reorganising distressed systemically important banks and, where appropriate, liquidating their non-systemically important components. The aim of this approach is to enable the systemically important component of a bank to be sustainably equipped for the future.

This legislation will help to make the financial system more stable. In addition to the "steering function" of the bank levy, the act is also intended as a means of ensuring that the financial sector bears most of the costs that arise when systemically important banks become distressed. Furthermore, it reduces the likelihood of the government being forced to rescue systemically important banks on the grounds that they are "too big to fail".