Mr. Niclaus Bergmann:

In a normal company the owners - the shareholders - would select the members of the supervisory board. For the Sparkassen the municipalities are the owners and it is they who sit on the supervisory boards. We also have representative nomination, so all the political parties who have a certain number of seats in the local government can send representatives to the supervisory board. The members of the supervisory board then must be approved by the German Central Bank. This is two thirds of the members of the supervisory board.