Professor Claudia Buch today assumed her office as Deputy President of the Deutsche Bundesbank. At its subsequent meeting, the Bundesbank's Executive Board decided on the following allocation of responsibilities, which will take effect immediately.

According to the most recent bank lending survey, the surveyed banks in Germany changed their lending policy only slightly in the first quarter of 2014.

Despite the rather sluggish global economic momentum in 2012, German investors stepped up their outward primary foreign direct investment (FDI) during this period considerably by €53 billion to just under €1.2 trillion. This occurred mainly by raising equity stakes, including the reinvestment of earnings. Europe was the main focus of Germany’s outward FDI.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, the financial assets of households rose by around €79 billion or 1.6% on the quarter to €5,152 billion by the year-end.The largest part of this increase, at around €47 billion, was the result of valuation gains; the transaction-related acquisition of financial assets amounted to around €32 billion. There was a continuation of the trend towards liquid assets in an ongoing low-interest-rate environment, a trend which has been observed for some time now.

According to provisional calculations, general government debt in Germany as defined in the Maastricht Treaty amounted to €2.147 trillion at the end of 2013.

To mark Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Berlin, the Deutsche Bundesbank and the People's Bank of China (PBoC) have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the clearing and settlement of payments denominated in the Chinese renminbi in Frankfurt.

Topics: Germany’s balance of payments in 2013, Shadow banking in the euro area: outline and monetary policy implications, Manufacturing enterprises in Germany: their vulnerability to crises ̶ findings of a risk analysis using year-end data

New figures for February show that the majority of businesses have completed the migration to SEPA. "Nevertheless, more bank customers than expected are making use of the additional transition period until 1 August 2014," said Carl-Ludwig Thiele, Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, regarding the status of the migration to SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) in Germany.