The European Commission has proposed that payment service providers may continue accepting credit transfers and direct debits in the national format until 1 August 2014. This would postpone the end date for SEPA by six months. The proposal can only enter into force once it has been endorsed by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. 

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.

The German economy has picked up momentum. Aggregate output is expanding at a faster pace again after an interruption due to the escalation of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area. The driving forces are changing, however. While external impulses had the upper hand following the economic and financial crisis, domestic economic activity has come to fore recently.

Low interest rates and an ample supply of central bank liquidity have helped to ease the tensions on the international financial markets. So far this year, the German financial system has also benefited from this situation. However, the Bundesbank believes that these exceptional financial conditions present risks to financial stability the longer they prevail.

German banks’ lending policy remained virtually unchanged, on the whole, in the third quarter of 2013. This was the outcome of the latest round of the Bank Lending Survey.

The financial assets of households increased by €23 billion, or 0.5% on the quarter, to €5,027 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2013.

The European Central Bank (ECB) today published first details of its comprehensive assessment. The assessment will include a total of 124 banking groups in the euro area, 24 of them German, and is to be concluded before the launch of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in November 2014. Measured against total assets, the comprehensive assessment therefore covers around 65 % of the German banking sector.