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%.

Germany's net external position stood at €1,228 billion at the end of 2014, and thus amounted to around 42% of gross domestic product. The German net external asset position rose by €248 billion year-on-year. This increase primarily reflects Germany's current account surplus last year. Unlike in the previous year, the increase occurred against the backdrop of rising gross stocks, as it had done in the years before that.

The aftermath of the financial and sovereign debt crisis saw a slump in bank lending to non-financial corporations in the euro area, a development which spurred the Eurosystem to respond with an array of non-standard monetary policy measures. The supply of credit began to level off in mid-2013, and it has improved perceptibly since the autumn of 2014.