German banks tightened their credit standards for loans to enterprises in the fourth quarter of 2025 to an extent not seen since 2023. This is revealed by the Bundesbank's most recent round of the Bank Lending Survey. The banks pointed to the renewed rise in credit risk as the reason for this tightening.

In an interview with FOCUS online, Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz explains why the digital euro is necessary and the challenges involved. Our objective as Eurosystem central banks is to launch a pilot operation in mid-2027. As before, we still expect the digital euro to go live in 2029, Mr Balz said.

By introducing the digital euro, we want to make our single currency, the euro, fit for the future, said Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel at “Bundesbank Spotlight” in Berlin. At the first event in the Bundesbank’s new series, he discussed the benefits of the digital euro with Ramona Pop, Executive Director of the German Federation of German Consumer Organisations, and Christian Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank and President of the Association of German Banks.

“In a globally interconnected world, autonomy is an illusion,” Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel told the German “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” newspaper. But even so, Europe still needed to invest in certain areas in order to become more independent. Interviewed jointly with Martin Kocher, Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, they also spoke about the debt ratios of euro area countries, proposals for fiscal consolidation, and central bank independence.