The banking stress test just conducted jointly by BaFin and the Bundesbank has shown that the profitability of small and medium-sized banks and savings banks in Germany improved significantly in 2023. Institutions have emerged from the interest rate reversal with stronger profitability and a higher capital base, and are also prepared for a severe crisis scenario. At a joint press conference in Frankfurt, Raimund Röseler, Chief Executive Director of Banking Supervision at BaFin, and Michael Theurer, the Bundesbank Executive Board member responsible for banking supervision, presented the results of the “LSI stress test”.

This year, the Bundesbank’s autumn conference in Frankfurt am Main focused on the challenges facing financial markets, financial intermediaries and central banks. The conference, which was organised in cooperation with the Humboldt University of Berlin, hosted international guests and speakers from the Federal Reserve Bank, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, King’s College London, Princeton and Bocconi University, among many more.

The digital euro is not intended as a substitute for existing products, Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz underscored at a joint Bundesbank-Oesterreichische Nationalbank conference where experts and central bankers discussed the usefulness of the digital euro for everyday payments and the financial markets. They also addressed potential challenges associated with its introduction.

The German economy continues to be weak, according to the current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report. Output in the industrial sector and in construction got off to a sluggish start in the third quarter of 2024 and consumers are holding back on spending. From today’s perspective, real gross domestic product (GDP) could stagnate or decline again somewhat in the third quarter. However, the authors of the article are currently not expecting a recession in the sense of a significant, broad-based and persistent decline in economic output.