The German financial system has functioned well during the pandemic; the extensive government measures have shielded the financial sector from losses. This is the conclusion reached by the Bundesbank in its Financial Stability Review 2021. At the presentation of the report, Bundesbank Vice-President Claudia Buch noted that, at the same time, vulnerabilities to adverse macroeconomic developments had built up continually, especially risks associated with real estate financing. “Now is the right time to take preventive action against future risks,” stressed Ms Buch.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann reiterated his call for monetary policy as a whole to be normalised if required to achieve the objective of price stability. “Ultimately, that also means reducing large bond holdings,” he said at the ceremony to mark the change of office at the Bundesbank’s Regional Office in North Rhine-Westphalia. Speaking at the hybrid event, Mr Weidmann bid farewell to Margarete Müller, who has headed the Regional Office for eight years. She is being succeeded by Jochen Metzger, who was most recently Director General Payments and Settlement Systems.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann says central banks shouldn’t become harnessed to fiscal policy or financial markets. “One of the secrets of success for an independent monetary policy has always been recognising and respecting one’s own limitations,” he explained. Turning to the question of how stubborn the high price pressures will be, he said the elevated inflation rates will probably take longer than previously projected to recede again. “We should not ignore the risk of too high inflation and instead remain watchful.”

Speaking at the Bundesbank’s fifth cash symposium in Berlin, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann and Executive Board member Johannes Beermann stressed that banknotes and coins still have an important role to play in payments. The main features of cash are that it is quick, easy and secure, Mr Weidmann explained.

Executive Board member Burkhard Balz has introduced Fabian Huttner as the Bundesbank’s new representative in Madrid. The scale of the challenges associated with the single monetary policy in the euro area became evident in the wake of the financial crisis and during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Balz said in Madrid. That makes it all the more important to reach out more to national authorities and financial institutions in the major euro area countries. It is for this reason that the Bundesbank has now resumed its practice of sending staff members to the German embassies in Paris, Rome and Madrid.

The Bundesbank advocates more tiered EU remuneration rules depending on a bank’s size and complexity as part of the impending implementation of the Basel III finalisation. Thought should be given as to whether small, non-complex institutions “need even more proportional regulation” under the EU’s current remuneration regime, the authors write in the October edition of the Monthly Report.

From the beginning of 2020 onwards, the coronavirus pandemic has been shaping economic developments around the world. However, as the Bundesbank writes in its Monthly Report, some economies have pulled through the crisis better than others. It notes that, whilst in a number of countries economic output has already returned to – or even exceeded – its pre-crisis level, in others it is still lagging behind. Extensive evaluations show that differences in the pattern of the pandemic and the measures taken to combat it, sectoral particularities and the scope of economic policy assistance can explain why individual economies have been affected differently.

The possible introduction of a digital euro has been the subject of intensive debate among specialists for some time now. The discussion has been slow to trickle down to consumers, however, as revealed by the findings of a representative study presented by the Bundesbank in its latest Monthly Report. 77% of participants surveyed in April 2021 had never heard of the digital euro.

The annual inflation rate in Germany was 4.1% in September, and the Bundesbank expects prices to continue rising for the time being. “Overall, the inflation rate is likely to rise further at first, before gradually declining in the coming year,” the Bundesbank’s economists write in the current issue of the Monthly Report, explaining that statistical effects are one contributing factor. 

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.