In April 2024, Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €25.9 billion, down €1.9 billion on the previous month’s level. This was due to a decrease in the goods account surplus.

The German economy is slowly regaining its footing after a roughly two-year period of weakness, according to the Bundesbank’s current Forecast for Germany.

Many people in Germany are open to the idea of the digital euro. At the same time, there are still gaps in the general public’s knowledge about the planned new means of payment. These are the results of a recent representative survey of 2,012 people conducted by forsa, a market research and opinion polling company, on behalf of the Deutsche Bundesbank in April 2024. 

At the end of 2022, Germany’s primary outward foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks were higher than at the end of 2021, by just under 3% to €1,634 billion net. Inward FDI was also up on its end-2021 level, rising by 6.5% to €956 billion. Although Germany’s FDI assets indicated significantly weaker investment activity than in the year prior, it recorded an overall increase of €75 billion in 2023 (2022: €170 billion). The increase of German liabilities was €15 billion, which is one-quarter of the previous year’s figure.

The Deutsche Bundesbank plans to forgo the construction of new office buildings on its Central Office premises in Frankfurt am Main. Its forthcoming new strategy for the Frankfurt location will encompass the Bundesbank’s Regional Office buildings in the city centre.

Germany’s current account recorded a surplus of €27.6 billion in March 2024, down €1.1 billion on the previous month’s level. This was mainly attributable to a lower surplus in invisible current transactions, which comprise services as well as primary and secondary income.

The consolidation process in the German banking sector, which has been in progress for many years now, continued in 2023 – albeit at a somewhat slower pace than in previous years. 

Following the decline in the previous quarter, households’ financial assets rose by €250 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, amounting to €7,716 billion at the end of the year. 

The Deutsche Bundesbank and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University are hosting a joint exhibition in Cambridge showcasing modern art from post-war Germany. Entitled “Parallel Beginnings: New German Expressionists & Ida Kerkovius,” the exhibition features abstract art by members of the “Quadriga” group – Karl Otto Götz, Heinz Kreutz and Bernard Schultze – as well as works by Ida Kerkovius.

The Deutsche Bundesbank and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have agreed to conduct a joint research project on central bank digital currency (CBDC). Together with the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) research team, the Bundesbank’s experts will investigate new technologies that could potentially be used in the design of CBDC. The MIT DCI is one of the world’s leading research groups in this field.