Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, speaking at an event for Frankfurt economic journalists, has doubled down on his calls to set about downsizing the Eurosystem’s large stocks of bonds in the near future. “I can imagine no longer replacing maturing APP assets as from the beginning of next year,” he said. Mr Nagel is also expecting a further key interest rate hike to be decided at the ECB Governing Council’s December monetary policy meeting.

Contrary to expectations, German economic activity expanded in the third quarter of 2022, the Bundesbank writes in its current Monthly Report. Despite high inflation and uncertainty about future energy supply, real gross domestic product surpassed its pre-pandemic level for the first time. However, the Bundesbank’s experts believe that downward forces are likely to clearly predominate in the coming months. They still expect the German economy to enter a recession in the final quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, though the scale of the recession is extremely uncertain. “Double-digit inflation could even persist into the new year,” the report states.

Speaking at this year’s European Banking Congress, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel repeated his call for a further increase in key interest rates. “To ensure the return to price stability, long-term nominal and real interest rates must sufficiently increase,” he said. Fellow Congress speakers Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank President, and Klaas Knot, ECB Governing Council member, also argued in favour of raising interest rates.

In view of high inflation rates, energy shortages and a looming recession, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel and Bundesbank Executive Board member Joachim Wuermeling have advised banks in Germany to be vigilant. “The turnaround in interest rates is upon us, and that’s good news for banks in the medium to long run,” Mr Wuermeling remarked at this year’s Bundesbank symposium “Banking supervision in dialogue”. What matters, though, he continued, is how they deal with, and weather, the short-term burdens. Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, meanwhile, stressed the importance of a strong capital base.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has come out in favour of further significant interest rate steps. Speaking at a joint press conference with Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner ahead of the Annual Meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dr Nagel said that the latest inflation data argue in favour of the Eurosystem taking a further “robust” interest rate step at its next monetary policy meeting.

Speaking ahead of the Annual Meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Bundesbank Vice-President Claudia Buch said that developments in the global economy had reached a turning point. “Cyclical risks and high inflation are weighing on markets, while geopolitical developments and combating climate change require structural adjustments,” Ms Buch explained. The IMF governors of all member states will gather for the Annual Meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, which is to take place in Washington DC in mid-October.

“Interest rates need to rise further, and significantly at that,” Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has said in an interview with the German newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. Interest rate hikes can have a dampening effect on economic developments in the short run, he explained, “but by raising rates we are safeguarding price stability in the medium term and preventing our growth potential from being damaged by inflation. After all, persistently high inflation is the biggest drag on growth.”

Speaking at the Bundesbank’s Payments Symposium, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel and Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz have made the case for the Eurosystem pushing forward with its investigations into central bank digital currency. Both used their speeches as an opportunity to emphasise the benefits that a digital euro could bring. 
 

According to the most recent issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report, German credit institutions recorded a strong improvement in performance in 2021 compared with the year before. Profit for the financial year before tax was up €12.8 billion, hitting almost double the previous year’s figure at €27.1 billion – a development which the report primarily attributes to the fact that banks significantly scaled back their risk provisioning compared with 2020 and also released some of the risk provisions that they had formed that year. However, the current year could see the profitability of German banks dampened, in particular, by the repercussions of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. The report explains that this might increasingly impair economic growth, which would increase the likelihood of credit losses.

The Bundesbank’s experts see mounting signs of the German economy sliding into a recession. According to the current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report, economic output is likely to decline somewhat in the current quarter and to shrink significantly in the final quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. The economists put this largely down to the extremely tight energy supply situation.