Stability needs innovation, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said at an event marking the five-year anniversary of the Bundesbank’s innovation lab, InnoWerk, in Frankfurt. To celebrate, InnoWerk invited experts on innovation from within the financial sector to network and discuss developments. 

Small and medium-sized banks and savings banks in Germany are robust despite economic challenges, geopolitical uncertainty and burdens in corporate and commercial real estate business. This is borne out by the results of the current stress test of “less significant institutions” (LSIs) presented today by Bafin Chief Executive Director Nikolas Speer and Bundesbank Executive Board member Michael Theurer.

The German economy is likely to grow only slightly in the third quarter of 2026, according to the current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report. It notes that temporary stress factors are putting the brakes on the economic recovery for now. “Growth in the German economy is likely to pick up again in the fourth quarter,” the economists write.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel and François Villeroy de Galhau, former Governor of the Banque de France, have been awarded the Great Franco-German Media Prize. At the award ceremony in Paris, their close cooperation in the service of European integration was honoured.