Once a year, the Bundesbank invites guests from the spheres of politics, academia and society to the Capital City Reception in Berlin to exchange views on the economic situation and current topics. This year's event saw Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel welcome IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and author Constanze Stelzenmüller as special guests.

The world is becoming increasingly digital – this presents a whole host of challenges for payments in Europe, but also opens up opportunities as a result of innovations. The Bundesbank’s Payments Symposium 2024 saw around 250 experts from the business community, academia and state institutions come together to discuss this topic, including Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz and Piero Cipollone, member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.

This year, the Bundesbank’s autumn conference in Frankfurt am Main focused on the challenges facing financial markets, financial intermediaries and central banks. The conference, which was organised in cooperation with the Humboldt University of Berlin, hosted international guests and speakers from the Federal Reserve Bank, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, King’s College London, Princeton and Bocconi University, among many more.

The digital euro is not intended as a substitute for existing products, Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz underscored at a joint Bundesbank-Oesterreichische Nationalbank conference where experts and central bankers discussed the usefulness of the digital euro for everyday payments and the financial markets. They also addressed potential challenges associated with its introduction.

The German economy continues to be weak, according to the current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report. Output in the industrial sector and in construction got off to a sluggish start in the third quarter of 2024 and consumers are holding back on spending. From today’s perspective, real gross domestic product (GDP) could stagnate or decline again somewhat in the third quarter. However, the authors of the article are currently not expecting a recession in the sense of a significant, broad-based and persistent decline in economic output.

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.

German credit institutions’ performance improved significantly in 2023, according to the current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report. At €48.7 billion, aggregate profit for the financial year before tax increased considerably, up by nearly 80% on the year. All categories of banks posted higher profits for the 2023 financial year than they had done in 2022. This development was driven in large part by the significant increase in net interest income resulting from the Eurosystem’s key interest rate hikes.

To date, European climate policy has not yet led to widespread relocations of energy-intensive production abroad by domestic firms, the Bundesbank concludes in its latest Monthly Report. In this, the economists examine the impact of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on the foreign direct investment decisions taken by German manufacturing sector enterprises. The experts conclude that favourable framework conditions that encourage innovation in low-emissions technologies are needed in order to prevent domestic production from being relocated in the future, too.

As part of the Bundesbank Invited Speaker Series, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel discussed economic resilience, i.e. adaptability, with economics professor Markus Brunnermeier. One question they considered was whether an effective and rule-based monetary policy can be adaptable. The event was moderated by Falko Fecht, head of the Bundesbank’s Research Centre.