Correspondent Banking

Section 3 of the Bundesbank Act gives the Bundesbank amongst others the mandate to arrange for the execution of domestic and cross-border payments. For this purpose, the Bundesbank maintains a network of correspondent banking relationships.

Account holders in correspondent banking may fall into one of the following categories.

• Foreign commercial banks
• Central banks, monetary authorities and states
• International organisations

The following items apply to holding an account at the Bundesbank.

• Accounts managed solely in euro
• No separate account management fees
• No obligation for a certain minimum credit balance
• The accounts are managed solely on a credit balance basis
• Interest is paid only on accounts of certain groups of customers

Correspondents may find detailed Terms and Conditions for foreign commercial banks left under the menu item "Terms and conditions".

The AML questionnaire, which has to be filled in by a specific group of correspondent banks can be downloaded here:

• Anti-Money Laundering Questionnaire

Please find further information about the range of services offered to foreign central banks and international institutions for the investment of their euro-denominated monetary reserves on http://www.bundesbank.de/zentralbankservice/zentralbankservice.en.php.

You will find the Directory of Foreign Correspondent Banks by clicking on the following link "Customer access mechanism".

Monthly Invoice

In November 2005 the Deutsche Bundesbank introduced a new system Customer Access Mechanism (CAM) that replaced – inter alia – the former application for the processing of cross-border payments in correspondent banking business. Due to this internal system change the correspondent banks of the Deutsche Bundesbank will receive from now on, on a monthly basis, an invoice for the fees being charged for payment orders according to the Interest Rate and Price Schedule.

Please find an example of an invoice including explanations and an assembly of the purposes of payments explaning the structure of the new invoice.

Monthly Invoice

• Explanations of invoice

You can find the password required to open the document at the end of your monthly invoice.

If you have any questions, please contact the Customer Relationship Management Team for Payment Services and Account-keeping at

• +49 69 9566 8877
• crm.paymentservices@bundesbank.de