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Online Representatives Election for the PSD Cooperative Bank

The PSD Bank Westfalen-Lippe eG headquartered in Münster, Germany, is one of 14 independent banks of the PSD banking group. As a cooperative bank, the members regularly elect representatives to represent their interests as owners in the committees of the Bank.

Representatives elections at the PSD Bank have been carried out online since 2009. The online representatives election of the cooperative bank was carried out in the period from March 31 2014 to April 27 2014 as an election by list. For that purpose, an election list with proposals for a future representative assembly was established by the election committee.

The members were asked to vote with the click of a mouse on whether they agree with the suggested list or not. The application to participate in the online election took place via the homepage of the PSD Bank.

Comfortable online voting

Since 2009, the PSD Bank Westfalen-Lippe eG  allows its members to have a quick and convenient vote in the representatives election. Also in 2014, a total of 43,591 eligible voters were again called to exercise their right of co-determination online.

An online election represents a forward-looking cooperative which employs innovative technologies to facilitate and increase electorate participation.

The Bank was able to provide its members with a secret ballot and a legally valid election result, because the POLYAS online voting system is the first election system which adheres to the electoral principles online.

In this way, the PSD Bank Westfalen-Lippe eG was able to provide its members with a modern and comfortable voting process.

Secure access for online voters

To access the online voting system, each cooperative member received a user name and one-time password. At a credit union such as the PSD-Bank, the possibility of using the customer and account numbers as user name is self-evident. The unique one-time password was created by POLYAS through complex security algorithms.

The PSD Bank opted for the postal delivery of election documents to their cooperative members, which was also carried out by POLYAS. By default, POLYAS provides the authentification data digitally to the voters. On request, other delivery options for the access data are available.

POLYAS Tip: Let your voters decide how they want to vote. You can combine an online election with an absentee ballot, with a ballot box election or with live voting at your general meeting. Request a non-binding offer now

Effective election management through digital services

In addition, the management of the credit union benefited from a rapid and highly efficient conduct of the election. In this way, the costs of the representatives election were significantly reduced, as an online election permits the participants a faster and shorter voting process and spared the usual paper consumption.

"The PSD Bank Westfalen-Lippe eG is one of the first banks in Germany which conducts its representatives elections in an innovative and resource-saving way online," the PSD Chairman Reinhard Schlottbom explains the voting process. "This fits very well with our banking strategy, and the resulting decrease in paper consumption perfectly reflects the sustainability and environmental awareness of the bank."