On Friday, 26 July 2024, the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank was consulted pursuant to Section 7(3) of the Bundesbank Act on the nomination of Dr Sabine Mauderer as Vice-President and Mr Michael Theurer as Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

In the period from January to June 2024, the Bundesbank removed significantly more counterfeit money from circulation in Germany than in the six months prior, detecting around 38,600 counterfeit euro banknotes with a nominal value of €2.4 million. This was 29% more than in the second half of 2023. Meanwhile, the total loss arising from counterfeit banknotes was only slightly up, by just under 5%. The increase was driven by easily identifiable counterfeits, especially of €10 and €20 banknotes, said Burkhard Balz, the Bundesbank’s Executive Board member whose remit includes cash management.

The number of card payments has continued to grow steadily since the end of the pandemic. In 2023, it rose by almost 16 % on the previous year to 11.8 billion transactions. 

Das Nettogeldvermögen privater Haushalte ist weiter gestiegen. Die Bewertungsgewinne treiben den Vermögenszuwachs an. Die reale Rendite steigt auf 1,4 Prozent. Die Unternehmensfinanzierung steigt leicht an, Verbindlichkeiten wachsen.
 

The German banks responding to the Bank Lending Survey (BLS) barely tightened their credit standards for loans to enterprises any further in the second quarter of 2024. They slightly tightened their credit standards for loans to households for house purchase and for consumer credit and other lending to households. Overall, the adjustments were somewhat less than had been planned in the previous quarter.

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €18.5 billion in May 2024, down €6.6 billion on the previous month’s level. The goods account surplus increased slightly, but the deficit in invisible current transactions widened to a far greater extent.

Cash remains the most frequently used means of payment at the point of sale in Germany. This is one of the findings of the Bundesbank’s latest study on payment behaviour in Germany for 2023. However, card and mobile payments are gaining significant ground, while the share of cash payments is declining. Although this decline is no longer as pronounced as during the coronavirus pandemic, the share of cash payments is falling faster than in previous years,” said Executive Board member Burkhard Balz.

The Deutsche Bundesbank calculates the basic rate of interest pursuant to Section 247(1) of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch) and publishes its current level in the Federal Gazette (Bundesanzeiger) pursuant to Section 247(2) of the German Civil Code.

In April 2024, Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €25.9 billion, down €1.9 billion on the previous month’s level. This was due to a decrease in the goods account surplus.

The German economy is slowly regaining its footing after a roughly two-year period of weakness, according to the Bundesbank’s current Forecast for Germany.

Many people in Germany are open to the idea of the digital euro. At the same time, there are still gaps in the general public’s knowledge about the planned new means of payment. These are the results of a recent representative survey of 2,012 people conducted by forsa, a market research and opinion polling company, on behalf of the Deutsche Bundesbank in April 2024. 

At the end of 2022, Germany’s primary outward foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks were higher than at the end of 2021, by just under 3% to €1,634 billion net. Inward FDI was also up on its end-2021 level, rising by 6.5% to €956 billion. Although Germany’s FDI assets indicated significantly weaker investment activity than in the year prior, it recorded an overall increase of €75 billion in 2023 (2022: €170 billion). The increase of German liabilities was €15 billion, which is one-quarter of the previous year’s figure.

The Deutsche Bundesbank plans to forgo the construction of new office buildings on its Central Office premises in Frankfurt am Main. Its forthcoming new strategy for the Frankfurt location will encompass the Bundesbank’s Regional Office buildings in the city centre.

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €27.6 billion in March 2024, down €1.1 billion on the previous month’s level. This was mainly attributable to a lower surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income.

The consolidation process in the German banking sector, which has been in progress for many years now, continued in 2023 – albeit at a somewhat slower pace than in previous years. 

Following the decline in the previous quarter, households’ financial assets rose by €250 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, amounting to €7,716 billion at the end of the year. 

The Deutsche Bundesbank and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University are hosting a joint exhibition in Cambridge showcasing modern art from post-war Germany. Entitled “Parallel Beginnings: New German Expressionists & Ida Kerkovius,” the exhibition features abstract art by members of the “Quadriga” group – Karl Otto Götz, Heinz Kreutz and Bernard Schultze – as well as works by Ida Kerkovius.

The Deutsche Bundesbank and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have agreed to conduct a joint research project on central bank digital currency (CBDC). Together with the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) research team, the Bundesbank’s experts will investigate new technologies that could potentially be used in the design of CBDC. The MIT DCI is one of the world’s leading research groups in this field.

The German current account recorded a surplus of €29.8 billion in February 2024, up €1.8 billion on the previous month’s level. Although the surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income, declined, the surplus in the goods account grew by an even wider margin.