Occupational safety for financial services and fintech
Financial services firms include asset managers, leasing and factoring companies, securities firms, payment institutions and fintechs. They rarely have walk-in customers, but they do have many identically equipped workstations and fixed reporting dates. Occupational safety stays manageable if you assess and maintain the workstations as one estate.
Financial services & fintech
For this type of business Safety Club provides the external occupational safety specialist: one contract with predictable annual costs, a specialist from the network on site, physician, travel, risk assessment and safety briefings in the price, and audit-proof documentation on our platform, the client portal. See in a few clicks what you pay within this full package, in the quote calculator.
A hundred identical desks: the workstation estate in financial services
Large estates of identical screen workstations are typical. A setup fault reappears at every desk, and a correction takes effect at every desk too.
The Occupational Health and Safety Act allows for this pattern: where working conditions are the same, assessing one workstation or one activity is sufficient (section 5 (2) ArbSchG). One carefully assessed model workstation per type can therefore replace a great many individual forms. The precondition is that the desks really are the same. A trading desk with four monitors, a corner desk against the glass façade or a desk adapted for an employee with a disability each counts as a type of its own. What applies to accessible workstations is covered in Accessible workplaces under ArbStättV.
DGUV Regulation 25 on robbery prevention names financial services and payment institutions explicitly, but it applies only where employees handle cash, other means of payment or valuables. A bureau de change or a money transfer service that accepts cash falls within it; an asset manager without cash holdings normally does not.
How financial services firms are classified under DGUV Regulation 2
Item
Financial services
Accident insurance institution
Usually the VBG. Its hazard tariff lists financial services institutions, leasing, factoring, asset management and securities trading under financial services, and financial and investment brokerage under intermediary businesses. The membership notice is what counts
Economic sector
Depending on the business, WZ 64.9 other financial service activities, WZ 66.1 activities auxiliary to financial services or WZ 66.3 fund management
Support group
III for all three sectors
Basic support above 20 employees
0.5 hours per employee and year, shared between specialist and occupational physician, at least 20 per cent each, plus company-specific support
Cash handling
Only then does DGUV Regulation 25 on robbery prevention also apply
Up to 20 employees
Annex 1 of DGUV Regulation 2 with no fixed support hours
Up to 50 employees
Unternehmermodell permitted as an alternative
More than 50 employees
Standard support
All employees count towards the thresholds, including working students and casual staff. Part-time staff count proportionally towards the threshold of 20: up to 20 hours a week as 0.5, up to 30 hours as 0.75. A fintech with 18 full-time staff and six part-timers on 20 hours each therefore reaches 21 and is above the threshold.
What the risk assessment in financial services has to cover
Repeated faults across the estate. Identical workstations mean identical faults: the same monitor height, the same viewing distance, the same glare. A sample is enough to find them, but the correction has to reach the whole estate.
Offered eyesight screening. For screen work, occupational health screening has to be offered. The most common shortcoming is not the absence of the screening but the absence of evidence that it was offered.
Glare and solar shading. Large window fronts combined with missing or ineffective solar shading are the most common finding at screen workstations in office towers.
Deadline density and regulation. Reporting and filing obligations create recurring peaks with fixed dates. They are predictable and therefore belong in the assessment under section 5 paragraph 3 ArbSchG.
The simplest evidence that eyesight screening was offered is a dated offer per person, filed with the records. Whether screen work glasses are then needed and who pays for them is covered in Screen work glasses: when the employer pays.
Inspections in financial services: what repeats across the estate
The workstations are usually uniform and well equipped, and that itself produces the typical pattern. The recurring findings are monitor height and viewing distance across the whole estate, glare from window fronts with no effective solar shading, and eyesight screening that exists but was never demonstrably offered.
Safety training for financial services staff
The focus is on employees adjusting their own workstation, because central specifications alone cannot cover individual body dimensions. Add information about whether screening is actually offered, which belongs in the record, and the rules on screen breaks. For reporting peaks, breaks and cover belong in the training.
Many teams work on a hybrid basis, so the setup guidance applies to the desk at home as well. What has to be assessed there differs between telework and mobile working. Risk assessment for remote work and telework explains the difference.
Which employers' liability insurance association covers asset managers and leasing companies?
Usually the VBG. Under financial services, its hazard tariff lists asset managers, leasing and factoring companies, securities trading and financial services institutions, among others. Financial and investment brokers appear under intermediary businesses. The membership notice is binding.
Do we have to assess 80 identical workstations one by one?
No. Where working conditions are the same, assessing one workstation is sufficient (section 5 (2) ArbSchG). Any type that differs, such as trading desks with several monitors or desks right against the window front, is assessed separately. The inspection shows whether the desks really are identical.
Does the robbery prevention regulation apply to a payment institution?
Only if employees handle cash, other means of payment or valuables. A payment institution that works entirely without cash assesses its workstations like an ordinary office. If it accepts cash at a counter for transfers or remittances, DGUV Regulation 25 applies.
