The financial accounts data for Germany announced in this press release are published for the first time pursuant to the provisions of the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010). This methodological framework replaced the previous ESA 1995 on 1 September 2014, and since then has constituted the binding basis for all relevant statistics in the European Union.

The profitability of German credit institutions deteriorated in 2018, as the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report reveals in an analysis of the annual accounts of German banks. Profit for the financial year fell significantly compared to the previous year, down by 31% to €18.9 billion.

The financial assets of households rose by €64 billion, or 1.3%, on the previous quarter to €4,871 billion by the end of the third quarter.

The financial assets of households increased by €23 billion, or 0.5% on the quarter, to €5,027 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2013.

Germany is facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Bundesbank’s latest Monthly Report. The experts regard a slide into a marked recession as being unavoidable. An economic recovery would set in only when the pandemic risk had been effectively brought under control.

In a joint op-ed piece, Bundesbank Vice-President Claudia Buch, together with her colleagues Sylvie Goulard of Banque de France and Luigi Federico Signorini of Banca d’Italia, call on politicians to seek European solutions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Les Echos and La Repubblica newspapers, they write that other policy areas can learn from European cooperation in the field of financial stability.

Speaking at Deutsche Börse’s New Year’s reception in Eschborn, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann says that monetary policy needs to be easier to understand.