Federal Debt Register

The federal debt register is a public register that in government bonds securitized liabilities of the Federal and its special funds documented .

General

The Federal Debt Register is the legal successor to the Reich Debt Register of May 31, 1910. Two ordinances of July 13, 1948 and December 13, 1949 governed the establishment of the Federal Debt Register, which is regulated in the Federal Debt Act (BSchuWG) of July 12, 2006. It has been managed by the Federal Republic of Germany - Finanzagentur GmbH since August 2006 , which is subject to the specialist and legal supervision of the BMF according to Section 2 (1) BSchuWG .

content

Not all national debts are entered in the federal debt register. Only federal bonds , federal bonds , federal treasury notes and interest-free treasury notes (" federal securities ") that can participate in stock exchange trading are eligible for registration . The Federal Debt Register thus not only serves to document these federal securities, but also gives them fungibility and turns them into tradable goods .

The federal debt register is divided into individual debt registers, departments and accounts; a separate debt register is set up for each issue and a separate debt register sheet is set up for each creditor . Security deposits or pledges are also entered in the federal debt register as encumbrances on federal securities.

Legal issues

For the federal government, in accordance with § 5 a federal debt register out BSchuWG that the justification , documentation and administrative functions of book-entry securities, as well as the documentation and management of other liabilities. According to Section 5 (2) BSchuWG, the federal debt register is divided into the departments of collective debt register claims , individual debt register claims and other liabilities . The collar may after § 6 BSchuWG bonds characterized issued that debt register up to the amount of the principal amount of the respective emission the name of a Wertpapiersammelbank be entered in the Federal debt register ( collective debt register claim ). The collective debt register claim is considered a collective securities portfolio. The creditors of the collective debt register claim are considered to be fractional co-owners . Securitized debt certificates in the form of physical pieces are excluded (Section 6 (3) BSchuWG).

According to § 8 BSchuWG, the federal debt register enjoys public faith and is public because anyone can make entries. However, it is not visible to everyone, but only to registered creditors. The federal debt register is subject to debt register secrecy , which corresponds to banking secrecy also towards the tax authorities .

According to § 7 BSchuWG, individual natural or legal persons or assets can demand that their share in a collective debt register claim is converted into a book claim in their name ( individual debt register claim) by entering it in the individual debt register . The constitutive act entries into the Federal debt register is securities law to stock rights . The debt register claim arises when it is entered in the federal debt register; deletion requires the repayment of the debt register claim.

In terms of securities law, the person registered in the Federal Debt Register acquires the value right even if the creditor registered before him was not entitled to it. This means that these stock rights are also equated with rights from bearer securities ( Section 935 (2 ) BGB ) by legal fiction . The cited judgment of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) of February 1952 dealt with imperial treasury instructions, which, in order to promote the non-denomination of securities transactions, become movable objects by way of legal fiction .

A federal debt register claim is equal in its legal meaning as part of the collective inventory to the other securities belonging to the collective inventory, even if a debt register claim was originally justified for the custodian by entry in the federal debt register. In order to obtain co-ownership of the collective stock of a securities depository bank, a credit in favor of the purchaser in the books of the bank is required in accordance with Section 24 (2) DepG .

Stock exchange trading

According to § 37 BörsG , bonds of the federal government or a federal state, even if they are entered in the federal debt register or in the debt registers of the federal states, are admitted to trading on the regulated market on every domestic exchange . For the existing state debt books of countries apply state law .

The federal securities entered in the federal debt register thus participate in stock exchange trading. For this purpose, a collective debt register claim (Wertrecht) for Clearstream Banking AG is entered in the federal debt register for the total amount of the respective issue ; according to the bond terms and conditions , the issue of securities certificates is excluded for the entire term . As a debt manager, the finance agency, with technical support from the Deutsche Bundesbank as the main bank of the federal government, provides all services related to the issue of federal securities.

The individual investor can purchase federal securities through his credit institution, which in turn orders these securities from the Bundesbank. The received by the Federal Bank purchase orders are achieved in that the respective amounts in the context of the collective deposit to the deposit account are transferred to the buyer's bank in Clearstream. With the transfer, the delivery obligation is fulfilled. The buyer's bank in turn issues its customer with a credit to his or her custody account in the amount of the nominal amount purchased . At the latest with this deposit credit, the proportional co-ownership is transferred to the investor in accordance with the provisions of the custody account ( Section 6 (1 ) DepotG ).

International

The federal debt register was also called that in Austria , it was created by ordinance of July 13, 1948. The Federal Debt Register Ordinance was valid until December 2001 and provided that bond claims against the Republic of Austria had to be entered in the Federal Debt Register (Section 1), the entry is in the name of the creditor (Section 5). Although this ordinance was not formally repealed, it became irrelevant as the legal basis was no longer applicable. The Federal Debt Register was regulated in the Swiss Debt Register Ordinance and came into force in December 1939. It was repealed in January 2008 after the importance of the debt register had steadily decreased and in December 1975 only 1,220 individual claims were registered.