In the first half of 2025, the Bundesbank withdrew approximately 36,600 counterfeit euro banknotes with a nominal value of just under €2.1 million from circulation in Germany. The number of counterfeits rose by 8 % compared with the second half of 2024. However, the loss arising from counterfeiting remained unchanged.

Der Design-Wettbewerb für unsere neuen Euro-Banknoten startet heute! Vom 15. Juli bis 18. August 2025 sind alle Designschaffende mit Wohnsitz in der Europäischen Union eingeladen, sich zu bewerben. Der EZB-Rat wird voraussichtlich Ende 2026 über das endgültige Design entscheiden. Zuvor wird er jedoch in einer öffentlichen Befragung die Meinung der Bürger einholen.

In the second quarter of 2025, firms’ assessments of the development of various metrics over the past 12 months were similar to their responses from the previous quarter. For 74 % of firms, access to financing sources remained unchanged, while 19 % reported that it had deteriorated – this represented a decline of 1 percentage point compared with the first quarter of 2025 and the lowest figure since the third quarter of 2022.

In 2024, the number of payments made using cards issued by German payment service providers rose by 11 percent on the year. This resulted in around 13 billion transactions last year. 

As before, there was only a slight quarter-on-quarter change in firms’ expectations over the next 12 months. 73 % of firms also expected that their access to financing sources would remain unchanged in future, which corresponded to an increase of 2 percentage points compared with the first quarter of 2025. The share of firms expecting a deterioration in their access to financing sources decreased by 2 percentage points. A decline in short-term liquidity was expected by 26 % of firms, while 18 % expected it to increase (previous quarter: 31 % and 17 %, respectively).

In addition to the regularly recurring questions on enterprise metrics, expectations and access to loans, the Bundesbank frequently asks enterprises questions on various current issues. A selection of the results is presented here.

Firms’ short-term inflation expectations fell slightly over the course of the second quarter of 2025, from an average of 3.1 % in April to 2.7 % in June. During the second quarter, average expectations for inflation on average over the next three and five years fell to 2.8 % and 2.9 %, respectively. In April, both figures had stood at 3.2 %.