Since the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis, nominal interest rates, particularly on bank deposits, have fallen to historically low levels. This has affected German households in particular, which traditionally hold a significant portion of their financial assets in the form of these deposits. Some are therefore publicly questioning the wisdom of saving in the first place.

There was little overall change to banks’ credit supply policy in Germany in the third quarter of 2015. This is revealed by the responses of the 34 banks domiciled in Germany that were interviewed for the latest Bank Lending Survey. For loans to enterprises credit standards and margins on riskier exposures remained largely unchanged.

As at end-June 2015, the financial assets of households amounted to €5,224 billion, after rising only very moderately in the second quarter, by just over €5 billion, or 0.1%.