Payment systems

Tasks and services

Efficient and secure payment systems are the foundation of a stable financial system. The Bundesbank secures and monitors cashless payments in Germany as a financial centre, provides settlement and clearing services and plays an active role in the further development of the single European payment system.

TARGET2 - Balance

Bundesbank's TARGET2 claims
Amount: EUR 1,136,001,702,040.83
(As of: 31 December 2020)

Money in programmable applications

Blue digital binary data on computer screen

Digital transformation is giving rise to new business models and is fundamentally changing existing business processes. Many of these processes will be much more automated still in future. Distributed ledger technology, which uses tokens to represent real goods and services and allows these to be traded digitally, makes it possible for flows of services to be programmable, autonomous and automated.

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The digital future of payments

To accompany Germany’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Deutsche Bundesbank is hosting a series of web seminars and a web conference this autumn with a spotlight on the digital future of payments.

PSD2

Flags of the European Union in front of the Berlaymont in Brussels

With the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), not only credit institutions, but also third-party payment service providers are able to offer their own account services.

Danish krone available as first foreign currency in T2S

On business day 29 October 2018 the Danish krone successfully became the first foreign currency to be made available for settlement in TARGET2-Securities (T2S).

Monthly Report: Bundesbank sees benefits in blockchain technology

In the latest Monthly Report, the Bundesbank’s payment specialists look at distributed ledger technology (DLT).