# KD-Bank

The Bank für Kirche und Diakonie eG - KD-Bank (lit. 'bank for church and deaconry') is a German credit institute in Dortmund that provides services mostly to institutions and individuals from the area of the Protestant church in Germany and its deaconry. It operates and has a legal structure of a cooperative.
The KD-Bank specializes in providing financial services in the Christian finance sector. The bank offers private customers the full range of banking services. Its goal is not primarily profit maximization but the economic support of members and customers. The bank is a member in the German Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken (BVR).
As of 2018, KD-Bank employed 214 members of staff at the locations Dortmund (headquarter), Berlin, Dresden, Duisburg and Magdeburg. It specialises in services for donation based organizations, financing of charitable institutions, especially in the area of deaconry, and long term investments.
KD Bank has a capital of around seven billion euros and is one of the largest cooperative banks in Germany. Ekkehard Thiesler, president of the Management Board of KD Bank, said that since its foundation, the focus of the bank's activities has not changed: "crediting projects of the Church and Diakonie". Social housing, hospitals, kindergartens and schools are financed. The bank finances both social and environmental projects, and for this it has given loans in the amount of around three billion euros.
KD Bank currently has 250 employees, and in the last year, 2023, they achieved a net profit of 11.8 million euros. The majority of ownership shares are held by members of church institutions and this brings them a dividend of about four percent. KD Bank has around 28,000 private clients. The share of private clients in the bank's balance sheet is about 10 percent.

## History

The Landeskirchliche Kredit-Genossenschaft Sachsen LKG (that would later become a branch of the KD-Bank in Dresden) was founded in 1925 as the first Protestant bank in Germany. In 1927, Protestant loan cooperatives were initiated in Magdeburg and Münster. In 1953 the Rhineland followed. Capacity building, Support of members and a share for members in economic success were the ideas which motivated the founders. In 1927 the capacity building institution Darlehensgenossenschaft der Westfälischen Inneren Mission eGmbH was founded by Martin Niemöller.
In 1926, Victor Rohdich was appointed as administrative director of the Inner mission after being majorly involved in the founding of the bank. At the same time a church bank was founded in the province of Saxony under the name of Provinzial Kirche Spar- und Darlehensgenossenschaft für die Provinz in Sachsen GmbH.
In the evangelical Church in the Rhineland before World War II people also considered creating a church loan fund. But only in June 1953 the Darlehensgenossenschaft der Evangelischen Kirchengemeinde und -Verbände und der kirchlichen Werke im Rheinland GmbH was founded by Otto Vetter.
With the German reunification in 1990 new business emerged in the new German states which was managed from Berlin and Magdeburg. In two steps a merger with the Prosparda, which was located in Magdeburg, was completed. In 2003 the DGM and the BKD merged and became KD-Bank eG – die Bank für Kirche und Diakonie. Part of the fusion agreement was a new headquarters in the geographical middle of Duisburg and Münster. The winner was Dortmund. Since February 28, 2006 the building in Dortmund has been the banks headquarter.
On June 9, 2010 the general assembly of the KD-Bank voted for a merger with the Landeskirchlichen Kredit-Genossenschaft Sachsen eG (LKG) which is headquartered in Dresden. The merger became retroactive on January 1, 2010. At the same time the general assembly decided on renaming the bank Bank für Kirche und Diakonie eG – KD-BANK. This slight modification of the name is meant to draw the attention of the public to what the bank stands for.

## Sustainability filter

As a Protestant church bank and one of only a few Christian based banks in Germany the KD-Bank, since January 1, 2008, has supported a sustainability filter for financial investments in securities. The sustainability filter is guided by Christian ethics and uses three goals of the conciliar process: peace, justice and the preservation of creation.