Five years right to an account Criticism of high basic account fees

Status: 06/18/2021 4:44 p.m.

Everyone has had the right to a basic account for five years. This should help poorer people to get a checking account. It hits hard when banks turn the fee screw in times of negative interest rates. Paying salaries, shopping online, electricity bills – hardly anything works without a checking account. In the past, for example, people without a permanent address or refugees often had a difficult time opening an account. With the Implementation of an EU directive from 2014 The legal situation in Germany changed five years ago: since then, every citizen has been entitled to a so-called basic account. It is intended to give everyone an inexpensive way to conduct banking transactions with a checking account. But the fees for these financial products are increasing – to the displeasure of those affected and the critics. The prerequisite for setting up a basic account is that you are legally resident in the European Union. The account holder receives a bank card and can transfer money. A bank may only reject the application to open a basic account in rare cases, for example if a customer already uses an account with another bank in Germany.

Hundreds of thousands of basic accounts already

According to the latest figures from the financial supervisory authority BaFin, just under 761,500 basic accounts had been opened in Germany by June 2020. However, many institutes are paying dearly for the “Jedermann Accounts”. According to a study by Stiftung Warentest from last December, the range extends from twelve euros to 250 euros per year.

“The success of the basic account is at stake,” warns Julian Merzbacher from the Association of Citizens’ Movement Finanzwende. “Access to an account shouldn’t be a question of the wallet, because it is essential. Other European countries, in which the fees are capped at a low level, show that there is another way.”

Deutsche Bank put in its place

If necessary, the courts have to take action. In the past year the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled in proceedings against Deutsche Bank . A monthly basic price of 8.99 euros and 1.50 euros for a paper transfer as part of a basic account are too high and therefore ineffective, judged the Karlsruhe judges (Az .: XI ZR 119/19). Since then, the bank has had to offer its basic account cheaper.

Fee cap required

In the opinion of Merzbacher’s colleague Michael Findeisen, Germany has only inadequately implemented the EU’s requirements. “The fee regulation urgently needs to be improved,” said the expert to the Protestant press service. The 68-year-old played a key role in shaping the relevant law, as head of division in the Federal Ministry of Finance. Five years later, Findeisen is retired and volunteers for the citizens’ movement Finanzwende.

Findisen demands a binding fee cap from politicians. “It is clear: the banks cannot earn anything with the basic account. But they can cross-finance that with the income from other financial services and products.”

Responding to criticism WhatsApp plans one-time messages

Status: 14.06.2021 11:19 a.m.

The WhatsApp chat service is responding to the growing criticism of its market power. The fears of many users are to be allayed with new functions for the protection of privacy. The WhatsApp chat service wants to stick to the complete encryption and is promising new functions to protect privacy. The company, which belongs to the US group Facebook, is launching an advertising campaign on data protection in Germany and Great Britain today. The countries are among their most important markets. Management’s ideas include the ability to send messages that the recipient can only view once. That could be useful, for example, if you have to send family members a password, said WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart.

06/02/2021

Users also want to be able to set that chats disappear on their own after a certain period of time. “Overall, people don’t want their messages to last forever,” said Cathcart. “When we talk, we don’t have a recording device with us. So it’s strange that digital chat platforms save them forever.” The short promotional videos say that content sent on WhatsApp is basically only visible in clear text to the users involved thanks to the so-called end-to-end encryption.

Privacy activists alerted

WhatsApp has recently come under pressure for various reasons: On the one hand, the Announcement of the new usage rules caused criticism. Data protectionists warned that WhatsApp could increase data exchange with third-party companies and, above all, that data would also be shared with the parent company Facebook. WhatsApp rejected this and emphasized several times that the end-to-end encryption, with which the service itself does not have access to content, will not be weakened. WhatsApp boss Cathcart admitted errors in the announcement of the new rules. WhatsApp has not made it clear enough what you are doing and why: “We only became clearer when we saw the confusion. That is our responsibility,” said Cathcart.

05/29/2021

More than two billion users

In view of the criticism, many people have apparently looked around for alternatives to the chat service. The company currently has more than two billion users. It is not known how many actually migrated. A vast majority of users who have already been asked to agree to the new rules would have accepted them, said Cathcart. He did not give exact numbers. Originally, users who do not agree to the new rules should lose access to basic functions over time. Meanwhile they no longer face any consequences . Only the new functions for communication with companies will only be able to be used after approval of the update. According to WhatsApp, they were the main reason for changing the terms of use.

05/15/2021

Attempt a charm offensive

The company’s move could have another reason: The parent company Facebook is currently not only under close observation in the USA . Last year, federal authorities and states filed lawsuits against the Internet giant Google and the online platform Facebook. They are accused of anti-competitive practices. The market power of the large technology groups is now seen as a problem by many governments around the world. Consumer advocates also warn: “The market power of the Facebook group forces users to communicate via WhatsApp,” says Lina Ehrig, the head of the digital and media team at the Federation of German Consumer Organizations. “From the consumer’s point of view, it would be ideal if messenger services are legally and technically designed in such a way that sustainable competition and the innovative strength of the market are promoted.” In order to promote competition, so-called interoperability would be a possible means from the point of view of consumer advocates: As a survey by the consumer advice center shows, around a third of users would be willing to switch messengers if messages could be shared between different providers.

Encryption dispute

For its part, Cathcart is targeting governments. They tried to soften the encryption in chat services. “I hope that, over time, governments will see that the most important role they can play is to keep people safe.” This could be done, for example, by setting standards for companies.

02/09/2020

WhatsApp argues with governments that end-to-end encryption helps protect the security of citizens. Facebook is still sticking to the plan to bring full encryption to its second chat service Messenger as the next step, said Cathcart. In several countries, governments and authorities are attempting the Complete encryption in chat services like WhatsApp . In Germany, too, there is a draft law with which the protection of the constitution is supposed to enable source telecommunications monitoring in encrypted chat services as well.

Criticism of China’s economic project Headwind on the “New Silk Road”

Status: 06/11/2021 12:58 p.m.

China is expanding its influence worldwide, and the “New Silk Road” is intended to further strengthen the country. But the criticism of the project is growing. At the G7 meeting, the Australian head of government wants to report on his experiences. From Steffen Wurzel, ARD studio Shanghai Ding Laisong from the customs authority of the Chinese port city of Ningbo was satisfied at the beginning of the week: Trade with the states of the so-called “New Silk Road” had increased by 30 percent, he said on the Chinese state television broadcaster CCTV. In the case of trade with the particularly committed Silk Road countries in Central and East Asia, the plus is even 50 percent.

Sri Lanka regrets cooperation

China’s state and party leadership continues to sell its controversial strategy and trade project “New Silk Road” within the People’s Republic as a great success. In numerous partner countries, however, the initial enthusiasm for the project has given way to sober insight. China’s state and party leadership has nothing to give away with the Silk Road. On the contrary: in many cases, the Silk Road partner countries have borrowed considerably – with Chinese state banks. This sometimes creates considerable dependencies. One example is the Hambantota port project in Sri Lanka. According to media reports, the expensive Silk Road port project has hardly brought the island state anything economically. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena now openly speaks of a mistake in leasing the port on the southern tip of the country to China for 99 years.

One billion euros in debt for Montenegro

In Europe, too, it is now becoming clear what the Silk Road critics have been calling a debt trap for years: the Balkan state of Montenegro, for example, had borrowed around one billion euros in China for the construction of a nearly 180-kilometer-long motorway. The autobahn is far from finished. But now the repayment is due – and the EU accession candidate lacks the money. The mood has also changed in large industrialized countries: In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Draghi put the Silk Road cooperation with China on hold, and the government in Canberra has also completed two projects in Australia. Only smaller, more symbolic projects were affected, but China’s communist leadership reacted angrily. She described Australia’s decision as “unreasonable and provocative”.

Australia accuses China of “extortionate behavior”

It is becoming clear that the communist leadership sees itself increasingly on the defensive in the Silk Road project, officially known as “Yi Dai Yi Lu”. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison complained at an economic conference in Perth “blackmailing behavior” by states like China. “Where compulsive acts have no consequences, there is little incentive to restrain,” said Morrison. Australia’s prime minister called for the sanctioning mechanisms of the World Trade Organization to be strengthened. Because if blackmailing behavior has no consequences, there is no reason for the corresponding states to hold back.

The G7 summit in Cornwall The heads of state and government of the seven leading industrialized countries (G7) will meet from June 11th to 13th in Cornwall, southwest England. For the first time in two years, they will meet again in person in the afternoon. In addition to climate change, the conference will also focus on trade issues and investments as well as the fight against the corona pandemic. In addition, the meeting will focus on the positioning towards Russia and China.
The G7 group includes the USA, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, France, Italy and Japan. Like-minded democratic states such as South Korea, South Africa, Australia and India are invited to the summit as guests. After the government in Canberra demanded a complete clarification of the origin of the Covid 19 pandemic around a year ago, Australia was de facto covered with an economic war by China’s leadership. The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to share this experience with the G7 countries. He will be a guest at the summit in England.

As the weather turns summer, tight-fitting, high-cut dresses are chosen by many women to wear. However, without limiting the gap, the shortness of the suit can make the wearer the center of attention. Recently, the image of a young girl dressed in a sexy dress has “hot eyes” shared on Chinese social networking sites, attracting much attention. The girl chose for herself a super short bodycon, hugging the nude body. Meanwhile, nude color, which is easy to match with skin color, appears in the evening space, giving the feeling of wearing nothing. Nude outfits combined with smooth white skin, sports shoes accessories, bright colored book bags make the girl stand out from the crowd. From the front, the girl’s appearance was nothing special except the problem of the tight skirt being quite short. However, the gap behind makes her the center of attention of passersby. Dressed in revealing clothes, the girl’s entire bare back is displayed in front of the eyes of the people. Seemingly very confident in her body, the girl even used her hand to push her hair to reveal a part of her body instead of using it to cover it. Not only creating a bold gap at the back, the front of the dress is also designed with a loose neckline, showing off a very sexy chest. High slit skirt details combined with a thin chain across the hips. When she put it on, the girl revealed a part of her body that made it difficult for anyone to look at it. It is known that the revealing outfit she chose to wear is a very popular dress in China and Taiwan. Many beauties who are active in the arts also favor them when participating in events and performances. Not only limited to the red carpet, the chain-cut skirt is also chosen by many girls to wear as street fashion. However, the fact that wearing mini skirts reaches the thigh level is met with negative comments from many people. The girl’s beautiful figure is undeniable, but some people think that this outfit is quite economical, not suitable for wearing down the street, maybe just for taking pictures or wearing events. Photo: Sohu, Internet. Invite readers to watch the video: Suddenly, the transformation of 5 ill-dressed disasters into a fashion icon. Source: Yannews.com

Following the story, recently, musician Nguyen Van Chung also shared a long article on his personal page, expressing his thoughts on the relationship between the audience and the artist. In it, he asserted that the audience is not people “Raise the artist directly like parents, but indirectly raise the artist with his affection and energy”. Musician Nguyen Van Chung spoke up about the incident. Specifically, musician Nguyen Van Chung wrote: For me, being an artist is a special profession, a blessing, a choice, an artist and an audience that is a very emotional relationship, not simply a seller – a buyer. That is why there are artists who have products of high artistic quality, sometimes very high, but few people care to support (only experts appreciate and respect), but have many artists have purely entertainment products, sometimes without artistic and humanistic values, but are still loved and supported by many audiences, spend money to buy products, buy gifts, buy flowers, buy tickets watch shows, and give them special offers, spend time watching Youtube channels or interacting with them on their personal pages… All of these things are about love, not because of the quality of the product (although that sometimes there are some really good items.) The original sharing of director Quoc Bao. But usually what comes from love, the accompanying action is caring, caring, supportive… (and a little biased, mocking, sometimes even a bit blind) calling dear feed! The word farming here is described as “using my love and my time to support the artist’s life”! From that and a lot of love, that artist will get a good income, a million-view YouTube channel will have a good source of income, selling tickets with an audience will increase the salary, participating in a show with a rating will increase the show. frequency of invitations, high Facebook interaction, book ads and generous costs…that’s farming! Audiences don’t raise artists directly like parents, but indirectly raise artists with their affection and energy tâm “. Long article by musician Nguyen Van Chung. Since then, the male musician himself draws the responsibility of the artist towards the audience: “ Therefore, the responsibility of the artist is to try to bring the best and highest quality spiritual food to the audience, to live a standard life, to set an example of a beautiful lifestyle, to behave well, to spread the thoughts and ideas of the artist. right point to guide young audiences to active and cultured lifestyles. And the audience’s responsibility is to support and love their artists in the most civilized way, respecting copyright, besides being objective, aware of right and wrong and criticizing artists who are not good. , the product is not good ! “. According to musician Nguyen Van Chung, when the artist is wrong, the audience has the right to defend, criticize, disparage or even boycott because that is their right. On the contrary, when the audience is wrong, the artist has the right to be sad, angry, to speak up, to blame, to be angry with some people. However, he asserts the artist: “Absolutely not saying “no audience needed” because that sentence offends the audience that is not wrong and loves you!”. Finally, musician Nguyen Van Chung confided: “That’s just my personal opinion, but I love all of them, because the ultimate purpose of art is to bring peace in our souls, to relax and enjoy the joy and beauty of life, I’ve decided to make art, I won’t carry anger, hatred, hatred in my heart! Whoever makes me unhappy, I avoid, I live and write music for the rest of my loved ones! Have a good weekend everyone! draw!”. Below the article, musician Nguyen Van Chung received a lot of support and agreement from the audience and artist friends.

According to Twitter’s disclosure on the Lumen database – a Harvard University project (USA), the Indian government has issued an urgent order to censor posts on the platform. The COVID-19 epidemic in India is complicated. Photo: REUTERS Twitter rejected several posts following a legal request from the Indian government, a Twitter spokesperson told Reuters on April 24. In the legal request that the Indian government made on April 23 and was disclosed on Lumen, the Indian government side mentioned 21 posts. Among them were posts from a legislator named Revnath Reddy, a minister in West Bengal state named Moloy Ghatak and a filmmaker named Avinash Das. The Indian government has cited the Information Technology Act of 2000 in its request for censorship on Twitter. “When we receive a valid legal request, we will review it according to both Twitter’s rules and local law,” said a spokesperson for Twitter. “If the content violates Twitter’s rules, it will be removed from the service. If determined to be illegal in a certain jurisdiction, but not in violation of Twitter’s rules, We can only keep access to content in India “- the spokesperson said. The spokesperson confirmed that Twitter had directly notified the account holders of the retention of their content, and announced that the company had received a legitimate request regarding their posts. Such requests for content censorship were previously reported by tech news site TechCrunch, which states that Twitter is not the only platform affected by the order. India is experiencing an unprecedented wave of COVID-19 infections when in the Delhi metropolitan area alone, an average of one person dies of COVID-19 every less than four minutes. On April 24, the number of COVID-19 deaths across India increased by 2,624, to more than 189,500. Cremators across India buckled as the number of COVID-19 deaths soared. The flames from the cremation point, along with the stifling heat inherent, have made the atmosphere in India more uncomfortable and sad. The number of deaths increased rapidly leading to a shortage of firewood and wood used in cremation. Many families have to wait for hours for the turn to cremate a loved one. The rare number of electric burial furnaces is also overloaded.

By Marilina Görz y Moratalla, SWR, and Jan-Philipp Hein The counter-espionage of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is said to have so far found no evidence that the fugitive former Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek was tied to Russian intelligence services. However, the search continues. That writes the special investigator of the Wirecard investigation committee, the former Berlin Justice Senator Wolfgang Wieland (Greens), in his investigation report, the SWR is present. At the end of November, the committee of inquiry commissioned Wieland to deal specifically with the contacts of the former DAX group with secret services. In his report, Wieland also mentions that Marsalek’s colleague on the board, Susanne Steidl, reported to the Munich public prosecutor that Marsalek had “requested and received a complete annual data set of Wirecard business partners to be forwarded to the BND”. The Wieland paper does not reveal what kind of data it was about. But: The BND excludes “verifiably” from ever having received it. For Wieland, therefore, the question arises who received it instead.

The special investigator Wieland does not feel adequately informed by the federal government. Image: picture alliance / dpa / dpa-Zentral A spokesman for Steidl says this SWR– Inquiry: “The BND was a customer like many others.” Therefore, the process from summer 2019 was not unusual. It was also anonymous data, such as can be bought from other service providers. To this day, Steidl does not know what Marsalek did with the data.

“Ignorance of the intelligence services”

Shortly after the collapse of the then DAX group in the early summer of last year – this is also shown by documents supporting the SWR are available – the Federal Chancellery and various security authorities began investigating Wirecard and the fleeting top manager Marsalek after inquiries from the press and parliament. Shortly after his disappearance, he was said to have had close relationships with Russian secret services. But neither the BND nor the Office for the Protection of the Constitution want Marsalek and Wirecard to be on their radar. “As a result, the ignorance of the intelligence services was confirmed by June 2020,” writes Wieland. The fact that Marsalek is repeatedly associated with Russia is due to the fact that he pursued a large number of projects and businesses there and traveled there very often. In 2017 and 2018 he also tried to start a project in Libya together with a professor of Arabic studies from Moscow, a high-ranking officer in the Austrian Armed Forces and a German refugee expert. In addition, his escape with a private jet via Belarusian Minsk is said to have finally led him to Russia itself. The secret service expert and historian Wolfgang Krieger from the Philipps University in Marburg says: “Jan Marsalek does not get protection from Russia for free. It is very likely that he received protection for financial espionage.”

Wirecard worked together with the BKA

Several units of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) worked together with the later scandal group, whose bankruptcy has grown into one of the largest criminal cases in German history. From 2013, online criminals were to be convicted with the help of the Group’s own Wirecard bank. The bank also made credit cards available for this purpose. Later, the BKA turned to the group “in order to obtain information about the whereabouts of known or unknown perpetrators in real time when developing new search approaches with the help of data from credit cards,” Wieland writes in his report. For Wieland, the fact that the report leaves many questions unanswered in spite of everything is also due to the lack of cooperation and willingness to provide information on the part of the federal government and the Bavarian state government. Information is blocked to this day due to ongoing criminal investigations. The Bavarian Ministry of Justice did not even send confirmations of receipt in response to inquiries. The SPD MP Jens Zimmermann from the Wirecard committee also criticizes this: “The fact that the Bavarian Ministry of Justice did not respond to the request for support from the investigative committee’s special investigator casts a bad but telling picture of the lack of willingness to provide information in Bavaria.”

Ex-top secret service agent in front of the committee

Wieland will present an expanded version of his report to the committee of inquiry on Thursday morning. Immediately afterwards, two former intelligence coordinators from the Chancellery have to testify before the committee. Klaus-Dieter Fritsche, who was responsible for the secret services at the government headquarters from 2014 to 2018, signed a consulting contract with Wirecard in 2019. Until 2020, Fritsche lobbied for the group at its old place of work. In 2019, a department head of the Chancellery met a Wirecard board member. According to Fritsche, Bernd Schmidbauer, who worked under Helmut Kohl in the Chancellery from 1991 to 1998, must testify. Schmidbauer admitted in February that he had met Marsalek about two years ago in his Munich property. In addition, Schmidbauer was in contact for years with one of Marsalek’s escape helpers, a former chief constitutional protection officer from Austria. The FDP chairman Florian Toncar has high hopes for the interrogations of the two ex-top secret service agents. The whole complex around Wirecard and the intelligence services has been “underexposed” so far, says Toncar. It is “worrying” that foreign intelligence services apparently got involved with Wirecard. Toncar calls the fact that the company was used as a “money laundering machine” for the interests of the Russian government or to pay mercenaries in Libya or Syria or to circumvent sanctions, “says Toncar,” hypotheses that the facts point to. ” Addition from April 14th, 2021: According to its own account, the Bavarian Ministry of Justice “transmitted” the information requested by the investigative officer Wieland. These were received by him today at noon. Confirmations of receipt, according to a spokeswoman, “are generally not sent by the Bavarian Ministry of Justice”. Therefore, the allegations made against the Bavarian government are incorrect.