With the theme “Backstage Bundesbank”, the Bundesbank invited the public to its Frankfurt am Main premises for an Open Day last weekend. More than 11,000 visitors came to gain an insight into the tasks of Germany’s central bank.

The Bundesbank’s stand at the Europe Festival in Frankfurt am Main attracted a large number of visitors to the Römerhallen. The stand was also where the Bundesbank’s Executive Board, Frankfurt’s Mayor Mike Josef, President of Frankfurt Main Finance Gerhard Wiesheu, as well as City Treasurer Bastian Berghoff and Councillor Eileen O’Sullivan, gathered to make a joint statement for a cosmopolitan Europe and an appeal for citizens to vote in the European elections on 9 June 2024.

Visitors braved the wet autumn weather to flock to the Bundesbank’s offices in the Frankfurt city centre, where the Bank opened its doors to the general public this weekend. The two-day event, entitled “Backstage Bundesbank”, offered a variety of activities for visitors, including a discovery tour around the Bank’s Regional Office in Frankfurt, along with the chance to lift a gold bar, attend a variety of topical talks and meet Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel in person.

The Bundesbank will turn 65 on 1 August 2022. “The Bundesbank’s greatest achievement is certainly that it has created a culture of monetary stability and embedded it in the public con-sciousness”, said Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel in an interview he gave to Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) to mark the anniversary. He noted that the currently very high inflation rates were weighing on many people and illustrated the importance of price stability, adding that “we can and must now do everything we can to prevent the current high level of inflation from becoming entrenched”. “People trust the Bundesbank, and they should continue to be able to do so.”

Our historical archives contain sources which give an exact account of gold swap transactions with the central bank of the United States – the Fed. The sources show how the Bundesbank’s quality control procedures and its stringent requirements regarding the composition of its gold made an accurate settlement of accounts possible.

The so-called Blessing letter, dated 30 March 1967, forms part of the correspondence between the President of the Deutsche Bundesbank at the time, Karl Blessing, and the then Chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, William Martin. Blessing addresses US concerns that the Bundesbank might convert US dollars into gold on a massive scale.

The Eurosystem’s monetary policy has only a relatively minor impact on the prices of Bitcoin and other crypto tokens. This is the conclusion reached by Bundesbank experts in the September edition of the Monthly Report, which states that “monetary policy impulses explain only a fraction of the volatile price developments”. At first glance, the high rates of growth seen by crypto tokens appear to be attributable to other factors.

A presentation film produced by the Bundesbank caught the attention of IT professionals – and has now gone on to impress the jury panel for the financial sector category of the German Prize for Online Communication.

Banking supervisors are reviewing their supervisory practices and measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Both the EBA stress test and the LSI stress test have been postponed, for example. More information can be found on the websites of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), the ECB, the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS).

According to Bundesbank Executive Board member Joachim Wuermeling, the situation is stable. “The current crisis shows that we, as supervisors, have learned the right lessons from the last crisis. Many of the measures, which, in some cases, came under sharp criticism, are now proving to be worth their weight in gold,” according to Mr Wuermeling.