German banks have once again slightly eased their credit standards for loans to enterprises and loans to households for house purchase. These are, in a nutshell, the results of the Bank Lending Survey (BLS) in Germany, which the Bundesbank conducts four times a year.

At the end of the second quarter of 2018, the financial assets of households in Germany stood at €5,997 billion. Compared with the first quarter of 2018, this represents an increase of €80 billion or 1.4%. Investors continued to favour liquid investments as well as forms of investment that are perceived to be low risk – with inflows of €43 billion, currency and deposits saw the largest gains, and claims on insurance corporations also recorded significant inflows amounting to €18 billion.

Germany’s net external position stood at €1,771 billion at the end of 2017, thus amounting to around 54% of nominal gross domestic product.

The results of the payments statistics for 2017 show that payments are becoming more digital and are increasingly made within Europe. More than 21 billion non-cash payments were made in Germany last year – around 3% more than the year before. These payments were executed on approximately 103 million current accounts. The average balance on these accounts thus rose by almost 12% to around €13,000.

Dr Sabine Mauderer and Burkhard Balz took up office as members of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank on Monday. The Bundesbank's Executive Board has therefore reshuffled its areas of responsibility.

Deutsche Börse and the Bundesbank are jointly exploring ways to employ blockchain technology in securities settlement. They unveiled a new prototype in Frankfurt am Main.

The consultation of the Deutsche Bundesbank's Executive Board pursuant to section 7 (3) of the Bundesbank Act regarding the nomination of Dr Sabine Mauderer as a member of the Deutsche Bundesbank's Executive Board took place on Tuesday.

The President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, visited the Czech National Bank yesterday. The main topics of his informal meeting with CNB Governor Jiří Rusnok and other members of the Board were the view of the Czech economy from outside and the situation of the German economy. The future of the euro area and the banking union were also discussed.

In the first half of 2018, the Bundesbank recorded approximately 31,100 counterfeit euro banknotes with a nominal value of €1.8 million. The number of counterfeits fell by 6.2 % compared with the second half of 2017. Statistically, this equates to around seven counterfeit banknotes for every 10,000 inhabitants per year

The banks repeatedly eased their credit standards and terms and conditions in all three surveyed loan categories. They again adapted credit terms and conditions mainly by narrowing margins irrespective of borrowers’ creditworthiness, albeit to a smaller extent than in the preceding quarter. Demand for loans to enterprises and loans to households for house purchase picked up considerably, with demand for consumer credit and other lending in fact rising sharply.