The Bundesbank has marked the passing of its former President Karl Otto Pöhl in a commemorative ceremony. "Today we mourn the passing of an outstanding figure in the world of central banking who was instrumental in paving the way for European monetary union," said Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann at a commemorative ceremony in Frankfurt am Main. Karl Otto Pöhl passed away on 9 December 2014 at the age of 85.

A thorn in the side of policymakers but indispensable to the Deutsche Bundesbank. Former Bundesbank President Karl Otto Pöhl passed away on 9 December 2014 in Switzerland, his adopted home country, at the age of 85.

The situation in the international financial markets is characterised by low interest rates and low volatility. The longer the period of low interest rates lasts, the greater the risk of exaggerations in certain market segments, Claudia Buch, Deputy President, and Andreas Dombret, Executive Board member, said at the presentation of the Deutsche Bundesbank's 2014 Financial Stability Review.

The accession of Lithuania as the euro area’s 19th member state as from the beginning of 2015 will trigger a new voting procedure, in which the voting rights of the national central bank (NCB) governors at ECB Governing Council meetings will rotate. This is designed to ensure that decisions can still be taken efficiently in future, too.

According to Bundesbank findings, exchange rates react in different ways to financial market crises. While no crisis-specific behaviour can be found for the euro, the Swiss franc, US dollar and yen clearly react to heightened tensions on the financial markets. In its July Monthly Report, the Bundesbank shows that exchange rate reactions have various causes.

Today’s low interest rates are making it difficult for investors to preserve the value of their assets. After all, if the interest received is lower than the rate of inflation, the value of an investment will diminish over time. However, this state of affairs – a negative real interest rate on deposits – is by no means a new phenomenon that is unique to the prevailing low-interest-rate environment. As it happens, negative real rates of interest have been the norm, rather than the exception, over recent decades.

In the past, financial system crises have often been triggered or accompanied by a protracted marked rise and then abrupt sharp fall in property prices. At the sixteenth Bundesbank Spring Conference, leading global economists, central bank representatives and delegates from international organisations presented and discussed their latest findings on this topic.

The Bundesbank posted a profit of €4.6 billion for the 2013 financial year. "Despite interest income being lower, the Bundesbank has recorded a higher profit for 2013 than for 2012 as it has not been necessary to transfer any more funds to the risk provisions," Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann explained at the Bundesbank’s 2013 financial statements press conference.

ECB Executive Board member Sabine Lautenschläger says that banks in Europe would be put through their paces. "I think it's hugely important for our stress test to be tough," she commented on the second day of the Bundesbank's symposium. This year was an opportunity to straighten things up, she added.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann believes that financial stability must not be adopted as an additional monetary policy objective on a par with price stability. This would put the credibility of central banks at risk, he explained at a Bundesbank symposium. Monetary policy was not a suitable instrument for safeguarding financial stability. Renowned economists then discussed the interaction between monetary policy and financial stability.