“Can a post-Wirecard supervisor keep pace with embedded finance, BaaS and crypto while preserving Germany's status as a fintech-friendly market?”
BaFin is Germany's integrated financial supervisor, not a fintech. Created in 2002 by merging Germany's banking, insurance and securities regulators, it supervises ~2,700 banks, 800 financial services institutions and 700+ insurers. Post-Wirecard (2020), BaFin reorganised toward more intrusive supervision of fintechs and BaaS providers — landmark actions include the N26 growth cap and the €6.5m Solaris AML fine. Under PSD2 it is the gatekeeper for German AISP/PISP, EMI and payment-institution licences, making it a structural counterparty to virtually every embedded-finance stack operating in Germany.
BaFin is founded in 2002 and headquartered in Bonn and Frankfurt, Germany.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against BaFin and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.