Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €22.6 billion in September 2024, up €5.5 billion on the previous month’s level. This was caused by the larger surplus in the goods account and especially by the shift to a surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income.

The National Cash Forum has been established on the initiative of the Bundesbank, the being, as Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz put it, to preserve cash as an efficient and widely used means of payment in a changing payment landscape. The forum will facilitate close dialogue between the associations of the banking industry, retail trade, consumer protection, the CIT industry, vending machine operators and the Bundesbank. The industry is set to meet here at least once a year. 

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €29.7 billion in January 2024, down €1.9 billion on the previous month’s level. The goods account surplus increased significantly, but this was outweighed by a stronger decline in the surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income.

According to the current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report, real gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to have contracted again somewhat in the third quarter of 2024. Output in the industrial sector and in construction is expected to have declined markedly. Despite favourable conditions, private consumption probably likewise provided only little impetus.

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €16.6 billion in August 2023, down €2.2 billion on the previous month’s level. While the balance in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income, moved into positive territory, there was a sharper decline in the surplus in the goods account.

We could be on the verge of a global economic turning point, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said in an interview with the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”. In this situation, we need more Europe, not less. Trump’s proposed trade tariffs could prove very painful for Germany. Should they be implemented, he said, we might even see negative economic growth next year. Mr Nagel considers European monetary policy to be on the right track.