People in Germany are increasingly making payments without coins and notes, even for fairly small amounts. This is indicated by the Bundesbank’s statistics on the use of cashless payment instruments in 2018, which show that both the number and the total value of cashless transactions rose on the year.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published on 18 July 2018 its final Guidelines on fraud reporting under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). These Guidelines were developed by the EBA in close cooperation with the European Central Bank (ECB) and several European Central Banks and are addressed to payment service providers and competent authorities. They are aimed at enhancing the security of retail payments in the EU. 

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has drawn attention to the dangers of an even longer period of negative interest rates. "Holding interest rates lower for even longer would aggravate the risks and side effects of a very expensionary monetary policy", he said at this year‘s European Banking Congress in Frankfurt.