The financial assets of households in Germany came to €6,950 billion at the end of 2020, increasing by €211 billion, or 3.1%, compared with the third quarter. With inflows of €74 billion in the fourth quarter, households again mainly built up cash and deposits, followed by claims on insurance corporations (€21 billion) and investment fund shares (€14 billion).

G20 finance ministers and central bank governors reaffirm their commitment to international economic and financial cooperation at their two-day meeting in Baden-Baden.

Brisk industrial activity kept Germany’s economy on a strongly expansionary path in the third quarter of 2017, and growth looks set to remain buoyant in the fourth quarter. The Bundesbank’s experts, writing in the latest Monthly Report, put this assessment down to the record-high sentiment in trade and industry, the excellent order situation in industry, and what remains a high level of consumer confidence.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has warned of the flipside of protectionism. "Trade-restrictive measures often provoke backlashes, and these harbour the risk of erupting into trade wars in which there can only be losers," he said in a speech in Hamburg.

At the end of the second quarter of 2019, the financial assets of households in Germany stood at €6,237 billion. Compared with the previous quarter, this represents an increase of €95 billion, or 1.5%. The purely transaction-related increase in financial assets amounted to €65 billion.