Lending business traditionally plays a predominant role in an institution's development, but it is concurrently one of the main sources of banking risks. Besides limiting the business volume by requiring institutions to back counterparty risks with eligible own funds pursuant to CRR, the German Banking Act and CRR contain specific provisions concerning lending business.

How is Germany’s international price competitiveness faring in light of high energy costs? The Bundesbank’s experts explore this question in the latest edition of the Monthly Report. To this end, they examined the impact of the higher energy costs, on the one hand, and the euro's depreciation against the US dollar, on the other. Their result was that, at least from a macroeconomic perspective, the depreciation of the currency is probably still offsetting high energy prices.