Financial health in Germany

Emanuel Renkl opened the evening with a clear definition: financial health means confidently managing ongoing obligations and having confidence in one’s own financial future. It sounds simple, but it isn’t. The status quo in Germany shows that many households are failing to do just that.

His central argument for banks was compelling: customers who believe that their bank supports their financial health are three times more likely to recommend it to others, twice as likely to stay with it, and five times more interested in additional products. This is not a soft KPI – it is customer loyalty.

Takeaways from the talk:
Financial health can be measured – and therefore also controlled.
Banks that anchor it as their core purpose reduce misguided incentives and strengthen their brand.
Social and economic benefits are not mutually exclusive – they reinforce each other.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Hackethal—Dean of Economics at Goethe University and Head of the Pension Finance Lab at the Leibniz Institute SAFE—summarized 50 years of behavioral research in a nutshell: The knowledge is there. It just doesn’t reach people.
His answer is Seasn: a digital financial twin that combines complete personal financial data with a forecasting model and flexible scenarios. Add Agentic AI and users can talk to their twin, identify levers, and take direct action. The vision: self-driving finance.

Takeaways from the talk:
Financial advice often fails not because of a lack of will, but because of complexity and a lack of personalization.
A digital financial twin makes the invisible visible: What is it? What works? How can it be achieved?
Agentic AI could be the decisive step from information to action here.

Nils Feigenwinter founded Bling at the age of 20 because, as a teenager, he noticed how little his classmates knew about money. Today, over 500,000 children and young people use the app. His presentation provided an insight into the Bling Pocket Money Report 2025, which contained some surprising figures:
In 2025, children will receive an average of 6% more pocket money than in the previous year.

They spend an average of €54 per month on six purchases – mainly in supermarkets (€11.46) and on drugstore and beauty products (€4.90).
53% of parents are unable to teach their children how to handle money.
For banks and fintech companies, this means that Those who reach Gen Alpha today with meaningful financial products will shape this generation’s expectations of financial service providers tomorrow.

Takeaways from the talk:
Financial education is not a school subject problem – it is a product design problem.
The demand for digital, child-friendly financial solutions is real and growing.
Those who start early build long-term customer relationships – not short-term transactions.