Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €16.9 billion in January 2021, down €8.9 billion from the previous month’s level. This was primarily due to the decline in the surplus for invisible current transactions – which comprise not only services but also primary and secondary income – but also to the narrower surplus in the goods account.

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

Notes on methodology

Jens Weidmann paid tribute to the achievements of Hans-Werner Sinn, the long-serving President of the ifo Institute. Mr Weidmann told the audience at a symposium held to mark Professor Sinn's retirement from office as President of the ifo Institute that he had played a major part in shaping the economic and political debate of the past few decades.

According to the current issue of the Monthly Report, in the final quarter of 2020 Germany's economic recovery was throttled by the higher infection rates and considerably stricter measures introduced again to contain the pandemic. However, in the experts’ assessment, the tighter restrictions have not led to any major setback; instead, real gross domestic product is likely to have more or less stagnated. The pandemic left a deep mark on German economic output in 2020 as a whole.

Using the filetransfer function, reporting parties can transmit payment and stock reports in data record formats (data upload via browser or automated access) to the Bundesbank in a secure electronic format. The filetransfer function is based on the ExtraNet infrastructure.