Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €27.6 billion in March 2024, down €1.1 billion on the previous month’s level. This was mainly attributable to a lower surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income.

The consolidation process in the German banking sector, which has been in progress for many years now, continued in 2023 – albeit at a somewhat slower pace than in previous years. 

Following the decline in the previous quarter, households’ financial assets rose by €250 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, amounting to €7,716 billion at the end of the year. 

The Deutsche Bundesbank and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University are hosting a joint exhibition in Cambridge showcasing modern art from post-war Germany. Entitled “Parallel Beginnings: New German Expressionists & Ida Kerkovius,” the exhibition features abstract art by members of the “Quadriga” group – Karl Otto Götz, Heinz Kreutz and Bernard Schultze – as well as works by Ida Kerkovius.

The Deutsche Bundesbank and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have agreed to conduct a joint research project on central bank digital currency (CBDC). Together with the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) research team, the Bundesbank’s experts will investigate new technologies that could potentially be used in the design of CBDC. The MIT DCI is one of the world’s leading research groups in this field.

The German current account recorded a surplus of €29.8 billion in February 2024, up €1.8 billion on the previous month’s level. Although the surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income, declined, the surplus in the goods account grew by an even wider margin.  

General government debt in Germany increased by €62 billion in 2023 to €2.62 trillion. The basis for this calculation is government debt as defined in the Maastricht Treaty, which is harmonised across the European Union. The increase was similar to that of the previous year, but significantly weaker than in the years before. Central government debt grew by €75 billion, while state government debt continued to fall.

An artificial intelligence (AI) application developed by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its project partners, the Bank of Spain, the Deutsche Bundesbank and the European Central Bank, enables analysis of climate-related risks in the financial system.

The Deutsche Bundesbank has taken receipt of a comprehensive study on the history of central banking in Germany between the years 1924 and 1970. The large-scale research project entitled “From the Reichsbank to the Bundesbank” looks into the history of the Reichsbank as the central bank during the Nazi era as well as investigating continuities in terms of personnel after the central banks Bank deutscher Länder and Deutsche Bundesbank were established after the war.