About Finanztest

Finanztest

Finanztest — since 2025 officially Stiftung Warentest Finanzen — is Germany's leading consumer magazine for financial services. Published monthly in Berlin by the Stiftung Warentest, the state-founded consumer organisation, it tests and compares insurance policies, investment products, loans, bank accounts and pensions with complete independence: the foundation carries no advertising and answers to no industry. Together with its sister magazine test, it is one of the two main publications of Germany's most trusted consumer institution.

Overview

The magazine provides objective information about financial services for the private household. Typical tests compare the small print that consumers cannot reasonably compare themselves: which private health insurance pays what, which Riester or Rürup pension contract is worthwhile, which current account is genuinely free, which home-loan terms hide the real costs. The verdicts are presented in the foundation's characteristic tables, with grades and detailed test criteria, so readers can match the results to their own situation. The editorial promise is independence made visible: no advertisements anywhere in the magazine, no commissions, no sponsored content.

History

Finanztest was founded in 1991, originally under the name FINANZtest, as the Stiftung Warentest's answer to the growing complexity of private financial provision. German reunification had just created millions of new consumers for insurance and investment products, and the foundation — until then focused on goods and services — extended its testing competence to the financial sector. The magazine appeared monthly from the start and quickly established itself as the reference for German consumers navigating insurance, pensions and investments. In 2025 the title was renamed Stiftung Warentest Finanzen, aligning it explicitly with the foundation's brand.

The parent institution's history frames the magazine. The Stiftung Warentest was founded on 4 December 1964 by the German federal government — the initiative went back to Chancellor Adenauer's 1962 policy statement and a 1964 cabinet decision, implemented by Economics Minister Kurt Schmücker — as an independent foundation tasked with comparative testing of products and services. Its headquarters stand at Lützowplatz 11–13 in Berlin-Tiergarten. The first test magazine, DER test, appeared on 26 March 1966 with a launch run of 210,000 copies — half of which sold immediately at newsstands — offering test results for 24 zigzag sewing machines and 10 hand blenders for 1.50 Deutschmarks, framed by a service section of consumer topics and tips. The press echo was mixed: alongside enthusiasm ("finally!") came sharp criticism — the Verbraucherpolitische Korrespondenz of the consumer associations called the tests partly useless, partly misleading, and several reports complained that two tests per issue meant only 24 a year "for four million marks". In the Bundestag, SPD deputy Lucie Kurlbaum-Beyer objected to the first cover, which showed a full-page blonde woman: was it the task of a publicly funded magazine, she asked, to work with the abundance and quality of consumer information rather than "putting together a magazine with sex"? The exchange captures how contested the very idea of state-sponsored consumer testing was in its infancy.

The foundation learned to make news with its results. When a 1973 test of pram safety found unexpectedly many poor products, the foundation staged a public presentation on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm; after the 1985 Heysel stadium disaster it tested the safety of 18 Bundesliga football grounds, rating eight of them "very dangerous". In 1988 a wood-chipper manufacturer sued the foundation all the way to the Federal Court of Justice over safety requirements exceeding the DIN standard — and lost. Since 1997 the test results have also been published online at test.de, and since 1979 the foundation has run the Jugend testet school competition to teach young people critical engagement with goods, services and advertising.

Over the decades the foundation became a German institution: 93 percent of German adults know the Stiftung Warentest, and a third of them say they base purchase decisions on its test results. In more than forty years it conducted over 5,600 product tests covering 100,000 products, plus more than 2,700 service tests; around 200 product and service tests are conducted each year using in-house methodology in independent laboratories worldwide. Poor verdicts regularly trigger sales collapses — and, by the foundation's account, an average of ten damages lawsuits a year from manufacturers, most of which it wins.

Content and Concept

A Finanztest issue typically combines several large comparative tests with service journalism on money matters. The tests follow the foundation's standard methodology: products are selected by market relevance, bought anonymously, examined against published criteria, and graded. For financial products, the "laboratory" is the actuarial and legal analysis — the foundation's experts dissect terms and conditions, fee structures and performance data that no individual consumer could penetrate.

The concept's distinctiveness lies in its treatment of finance as a consumer-protection subject like any other. Where the financial press addresses investors, Finanztest addresses households: the family choosing health insurance, the couple financing a home, the saver planning for retirement. The language is deliberately non-technical, the tables do the analytical work, and every recommendation is traceable to published test criteria.

Coverage and Audience

The sold circulation is reported at 211,000 copies (2021 figures), making it one of Germany's largest-circulation business and finance titles. The readership is the financially responsible middle class: homeowners, savers, families and retirees who make consequential money decisions and want an independent second opinion before signing. The editor-in-chief is Isabella Eigner (earlier editors included Hubertus Primus and Hermann-Josef Tenhagen), and the print edition carries the ISSN 0939-1614. Together with test, the two magazines reach a combined circulation of around one million copies.

Ownership

Finanztest is published by the Stiftung Warentest itself — a non-profit foundation under a mandate from the German state, represented by the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, to investigate and compare goods and services and to conduct consumer education. The foundation finances itself through the sale of its magazines (test with an annual average of 299,000 copies, Finanztest with 194,000), books — such as the Handbuch Medikamente or the Vorsorge-Set — special publications, licence fees and test results online at test.de, plus income from its foundation capital. In 2024 revenues were around 66.7 million euros. The only loss in its history came in 2012, when a shortfall of 1.2 million euros resulted mainly from lower interest on the foundation capital. To secure its independence, the federal government increased the foundation's capital by a total of 100 million euros to 175 million in 2016 and 2017; since 2024 the foundation receives no annual grants from the federal budget at all. It employs around 374 people (2021 figure). The financing model is the precondition of the editorial model: because readers alone pay for the tests, no advertiser can influence them.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is test.de, the foundation's online platform, where test results, the magazines' content and interactive tools — comparison calculators for insurance, accounts and investments — are published. The site extends the print brand with continuously updated test databases and paid content, serving readers who want the verdict now rather than with the monthly issue. As Stiftung Warentest Finanzen, the magazine enters its fourth decade with its founding proposition intact: in a financial marketplace of ever-growing complexity, the independent test remains the consumer's strongest instrument — and the one German households trust most. The magazine's test verdicts on insurance, investments and banking products continue to move markets, giving Finanztest an influence few German magazines can match.