Households’ financial assets rose by €126 billion to around €6.5 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2019. Valuation gains were the main reason for this increase. Households also increased their holdings of currency, deposits, investment fund shares and claims on insurance corporations.

At the end of the third quarter of 2016, households' financial assets amounted to €5,478 billion; this figure was up by a considerable €76 billion (or 1.4%) from the second quarter of 2016.

The Bundesbank posted a profit of €5.8 billion for the 2019 financial year. Following adjustment of the reserves, the Bank registered its highest distributable profit since 2008, at €5.9 billion. “Lower risk provisioning is the main reason for this strong rise in the profit for the year,” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann explained.

Contrary to expectations, German economic activity expanded in the third quarter of 2022, the Bundesbank writes in its current Monthly Report. Despite high inflation and uncertainty about future energy supply, real gross domestic product surpassed its pre-pandemic level for the first time. However, the Bundesbank’s experts believe that downward forces are likely to clearly predominate in the coming months. They still expect the German economy to enter a recession in the final quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, though the scale of the recession is extremely uncertain. “Double-digit inflation could even persist into the new year,” the report states.