Experience has shown that exchange rates can be fairly volatile in times of heightened tension in the international financial markets.

Topics: Germany’s balance of payments in 2013, Shadow banking in the euro area: outline and monetary policy implications, Manufacturing enterprises in Germany: their vulnerability to crises ̶ findings of a risk analysis using year-end data

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’s financial links with the rest of the world continued to increase in 2012.

At the end of the first quarter of 2013, the financial assets of households rose by €52 billion, or 1.1%, on the previous quarter to just under €4,992 billion. The acquisition of financial assets was comparable to the first quarters of the previous years, with only a small percentage of this increase, around €5 billion, attributable to capital market gains.