Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has warned that central banks must not respond to the current high inflation rates with too little, too late. “If monetary policy falls behind the curve, even stronger hikes in interest rates could become necessary to get inflation under control,” he said at the Joint Spring Conference co-hosted by the Bundesbank and the Banque de France in Eltville am Rhein. “This would create much higher economic costs,” he cautioned.

The Bundesbank notes in its current Monthly Report that inflation pushes up the tax burden on real incomes. While government regularly adjusts the income tax scale, meaning that this effect – known as bracket creep – has been more or less offset in the past, the procedure used at present involves a time lag and is prone to estimation errors. The Bundesbank therefore recommends switching to a more timely and targeted procedure.

Demographic developments will put the finances of the pension insurance scheme under pressure in future. The Bundesbank’s experts present long-term simulations on this topic in the current Monthly Report. These simulations illustrate how the government plans to achieve a permanently stable replacement rate of 48% would affect the pension contribution rate and the federal budget. They also show the effects of two reform options on the replacement rate, the contribution rate and the federal budget. Both options are international standard practice. One ties pensions in payment to inflation, whilst the other links the retirement age to rising life expectancy.

Against the backdrop of declining infection numbers and expiring legal requirements and measures, coronavirus-related protective measures, such as distance rules or general mask requirements, will end on 31 May 2022.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has called on the Governing Council of the ECB to send out a clear message in June about where euro area monetary policy is heading. His view today is that the Governing Council will then, in July, have to take a first interest rate step, followed by more in the second half of the year. “Negative interest rates will soon be a thing of the past,” Dr Nagel stated in an interview with the news magazine “DER SPIEGEL”.

The German economy recovered slightly in the first quarter of 2022. However, the effects of Russia’s war on Ukraine have been weighing considerably on the economy since the start of the conflict, according to the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report. Supply bottlenecks in industry and construction intensified again, for example, while high energy prices dampened output and reduced household purchasing power. At most, the Bundesbank expects economic output to grow slightly this spring.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has once again advocated making a timely start on normalising policy rates in the euro area. “When net asset purchases come to an end – possibly in June – I see the time for an initial interest rate hike soon afterwards – possibly in July – as having come,” Mr Nagel said at the press conference for the G7 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors at the Petersberg, near Bonn. He added that they could soon be followed by further interest rate moves.

Machine learning, artificial intelligence and the digital euro – at the BaFinTech industry meeting, Bundesbank Executive Board members Joachim Wuermeling and Burkhard Balz spoke about the opportunities and risks of the digitalisation of banking business and central bank digital currency. The BaFinTech format was aimed at the financial industry.

Following an agreement reached between the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Bundesbank, the German Banking Industry Committee and the National Bank of Ukraine, refugees who have fled the war in Ukraine can exchange hryvnia banknotes into euro in Germany from 24 May 2022. 

Біженці, які врятувалися від бойових дій в Україні, з 24 травня 2022 року можуть у Німеччині обміняти гривню у банкнотах на євро. Про це повідомляють Федеральне міністерство фінансів, банк Deutsche Bundesbank і Комітет банківської галузі Німеччини разом з Національним банком України.