Overview of the most important content-related amendments to the external reporting system.

Information about investment funds (public and specialised funds), inter alia about the amounts of assets of investment funds, the number of units outstanding and sales in units, issue and repurchase prices per unit as well as sales receipts and fund repurchases.

Bureaucracy costs for firms in Germany have risen significantly in recent years. A new Bundesbank analysis quantifies the rise in bureaucracy costs. On average, they increased between 2022 and 2024 from around 5% to around 7% of annual turnover. Bureaucracy is placing a particularly heavy burden on smaller enterprises, according to the Bundesbank’s latest Monthly Report.

Das Europäische Parlament hat diese Woche seine Position zum Single Currency Package verabschiedet. Das ist ein weiterer wichtiger Schritt für den digitalen Euro. Zugleich wird die Rolle von Bargeld als gesetzliches Zahlungsmittel gestärkt. Im Interview mit der FAZ spricht Burkhard Balz darüber, wie die nächsten Schritte nun aussehen.

German banks tightened their credit standards for loans to enterprises, for housing loans to households as well as for consumer credit and other loans to households in the second quarter 2026.

The ECB requires credit institutions to hold compulsory deposits on accounts with the national central banks: these are called “minimum” or “required” reserves. The amount of required reserves that each credit institution has to hold is determined by its reserve base multiplied by a minimum reserve ratio.

In the first half of 2026, the Bundesbank withdrew around 30,000 counterfeit euro banknotes with a total nominal value of €1.75 million from circulation. This was a 4.3% drop in the number of counterfeits compared with the second half of 2025. Levels of counterfeit money in Germany are low,” said Bundesbank Executive Board member Lutz Lienenkämper. Statistically speaking, there were seven counterfeit banknotes per 10,000 inhabitants.”

Various fake reports, advertisements, photos and videos in connection with the Bundesbank are circulating on the internet and social media. In addition, fraudsters are impersonating Bundesbank staff on the phone, in emails and letters and requesting, for example, that personal data be handed over or payments be made. The Bundesbank is providing important pointers on this topic to help recipients identify such fake reports and attempted fraud.