“Join the VKI Collection Campaign and Get Your Money Back from Bank Austria and Erste Bank for Fund Investments Made Before 2018!”

For brokering financial investment products, banks often receive commissions in the form of so-called kickback payments from the capital investment companies. If banks do not disclose these commission payments to customers, they are inadmissible and, according to the legal opinion of the Association for Consumer Information (VKI), must be repaid. Because such payments are ultimately at the expense of the customer, since they are deducted from the invested money, according to the VKI in a broadcast on Monday.

Kick-back at customer’s expense

This is exactly what happened to customers who took out funds with Bank Austria and Erste Bank before December 31, 2017. The VKI has received a number of cases that show that Bank Austria and Erste Bank concealed the portfolio commissions when brokering financial investment products before 2007. In the opinion of the VKI, it is not apparent that there was sufficient disclosure in the period from January 1st, 2007 to December 31st, 2017 and that there was also an improvement in quality. It was not until 2018 that there was an observable improvement.

According to the legal opinion of the VKI, the portfolio commissions collected inadmissibly by December 31, 2017 are to be repaid to the customers by the banks. The amount of the portfolio commission paid depends on the invested fund assets and amounts to approx. 0.8 percent of the fund assets per investment year. The amount to be reimbursed could be a few hundred to a few thousand euros, depending on the investment volume and investment time, according to the VKI in a press release.

Free collection campaign by the VKI

The VKI is now starting a free collection campaign for affected customers of Erste Bank der Österreichische Sparkassen AG (Erste Bank) and Unicredit Bank Austria AG (Bank Austria). Affected are consumers who were brokered a fund product by December 31, 2017.

Registration is now available at www.verbraucherrecht.at/kick-back possible.