The profitability of German banks declined in their core business areas in 2016, as the latest Monthly Report points out in an analysis of the annual financial statements of German credit institutions. Earnings from interest and commission business fell by €5.4 billion to €120.9 billion last year.

“German economic output is likely to have declined considerably more sharply in the second quarter of 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic than in the first quarter,” the Bundesbank explains in the latest edition of its Monthly Report. According to the Bundesbank, it can be assumed, however, that economic activity already bottomed out in April and that the economy has been recovering since then.

In its Monthly Report, the Bundesbank’s economists write that the German economy recovered rapidly in the third quarter from its slump in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. However, they are not expecting the catch-up momentum to continue into the final quarter of 2020 due to the resurgence of the pandemic. On the other hand, they do not expect economic output to slump to a similarly subdued level as in the second quarter, either.

“Economic output in Germany is likely to have risen sharply in the third quarter of 2020,” the Bundesbank writes in its latest Monthly Report. As measured by quarterly gross domestic product, the German economy may have already recouped slightly more than half of the dramatic losses sustained in the first half of the year. According to the experts, there will probably be only a relatively small rise in economic output in the current quarter.