Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €26.3 billion in September 2020, up €9.7 billion from the previous month’s level.

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €22.5 billion in October 2020, down €2.7 billion from the previous month’s level.

The German banks responding to the Bank Lending Survey (BLS) once again tightened their credit standards for loans to enterprises somewhat in the first quarter of 2021. Standards remained unchanged for loans to households for house purchase, and they were eased marginally for consumer credit and other lending to households.

“Economic output in Germany is likely to have risen sharply in the third quarter of 2020,” the Bundesbank writes in its latest Monthly Report. As measured by quarterly gross domestic product, the German economy may have already recouped slightly more than half of the dramatic losses sustained in the first half of the year. According to the experts, there will probably be only a relatively small rise in economic output in the current quarter.

At the end of the first quarter of 2017, households' financial assets amounted to €5,676 billion; this figure was up markedly, by just over €84 billion (1.5%), from the fourth quarter of 2016. The rise was predominantly attributable to the transaction-based acquisition of financial assets, which, at roughly €60 billion, was higher than in the preceding quarters.

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €16.5 billion in August 2020, down €4.6 billion from the previous month’s level.

Germany’s outward immediate and indirect foreign direct investment (FDI) was up by €48 billion at the end of 2019 to €1,372 billion. The ranking of individual recipient countries remained broadly unchanged: almost 30%, or €391 billion worth, of all German FDI went to the United States, which was once again number one.

According to Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann central banks could do more to curb global warming. In an op-ed for the “Financial Times” he pointed out a number of possible courses of action. However, he added, central banks should stay focused on their primary objective, price stability. “When it comes to saving the planet, central banks do not have a magic wand”, he wrote.

Bundesbank Executive Board member Andreas Dombret is not expecting a financial market crisis following the UK's vote to leave the EU. At an event in Frankfurt am Main, he noted that, even though it was impossible to rule out further movements in prices or shifts of funds from one asset class to another, "a panic reaction to Brexit is rather unlikely at present".