An automated safety net for municipal investments has not existed since 2017.

If municipalities do not want to set up extensive bond research departments themselves, in which financial analysts examine thousands of qualitative data and annual financial statements from issuers of financial products, the municipalities depend on the independent judgments of reliable credit rating agencies and specialists. The scandal of the Berlin rating agency Scope around the Greensill Bank in Bremen shows the billions in consequences of an embellished credit rating (see Börsen-Zeitung).

The city of Münster in Westphalia did not rely on the judgment of a rating agency registered in the European Union – the process in itself is a disgrace not only for the local rating agency Scope Ratings in Berlin, but also for the European Securities and Markets Authority in Paris, because far away in Paris are the supervisors, who already had internal compliance reports, transparency reports and notifications about the processes in Berlin. There was no lack of information.