The new CEO of Aareal Bank, Christian Ricken, has been elected to the Board of the Association of German Banks (Bankenverband). He has taken the place of Andreas Arndt of Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, , who is retiring.

Ricken has been CEO of Aareal Bank since 1 August, after moving from LBBW.

In addition to Ricken, the Bankenverband has seven other board members. These include Lutz Diederichs (BNP Paribas), Wolfgang Fink (Goldman Sachs), Ingrid Hengster (Barclays) and Marion Höllinger (Unicredit), who are Germany heads of international banks. The board also includes Manfred Knof (Commerzbank) and Gerhard Wiesheu (Metzler), as well as Chief Executive Heiner Herkenhoff.

Nick Jue (ING) and Christian Kühn (Berenberg) are Members of the Presidency. Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing heads the association as President. In future, Ricken will primarily represent the interests of property lenders within the association. As for his predecessor Arndt from Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, the crisis in commercial property financing is an ongoing issue for Wiesbaden-based Aareal Bank.

The new owners of Aareal Bank decided in April to make a change at the top of the bank. They appointed Christian Ricken to succeed Jochen Klösges with effect from 1 August. Mr Ricken had previously been Chief Capital Markets Officer at LBBW.