Bafin President Mark Branson can mark the day in red in his calendar. He gets praise. And not by anyone, but by Sparkassen President Helmut Schleweis. And he is one of the association functionaries who have hardly missed an opportunity to publicly rub against the regulation.

Especially the smaller institutions, including some of the 359 savings banks, should have to deal much less with the bureaucratic requirements of regulation, according to Schleweis' mantra-like demand. Less regulation, more financing of projects in the fight against climate change, as the savings bank president called for about one and a half years ago. And Schleweis was also up in arms against BaFin's requirement for a higher capital buffer for real estate loans.

And now: What happened to Silicon Valley Bank could not happen to the German savings banks, says Schleweis and cites as the reason the significantly better regulation in this country compared to the USA, where the smaller institutions under Donald Trump were again given a much longer leash.

May Schleweis be proved right, and may Branson and his associates protect the German financial sector from adversity. Schleweis is still nine months in office. Until then, it is likely to be much more difficult for him to work through the regulation. And so did his successor Ulrich Reuter.