In the latest Monthly Report, the Bundesbank’s payment specialists look at distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The final wave of migration to the European securities settlement platform TARGET2-Securities (T2S) has been successfully completed. Nearly all European securities settlements are now being conducted through T2S.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann believes that the Governing Council of the European Central Bank should make sure that it does not miss the right time for monetary policy normalisation. Speaking in Frankfurt, he noted that monetary conditions would continue to support economic activity for a long time to come.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has called on the euro-area countries to embrace fiscal prudence, arguing in a speech in Hamburg that the tighter the fiscal space, the more central banks will come under political pressure to stabilise economic activity in the short run – even if that does mean compromising on price stability.

The low interest rates are imposing a heavy burden on the 1,555 small and medium-sized credit institutions operating in Germany. This is the finding of a recent survey conducted by the Bundesbank and the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). Even so, many banks and savings banks are taking countermeasures, for example by raising fees.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has spoken out in favour of an orderly exit from the European Central Bank's asset purchase programme. Speaking in an interview with the Börsen-Zeitung, he said the programme should be gradually tapered to avoid causing needless turmoil in the financial markets.

The Bundesbank has completed the transfer of its gold reserves from New York and Paris to Frankfurt am Main three years ahead of schedule. This means that the objective of its gold storage plan, which was set out in 2013, has been achieved well in advance. More than half of Germany’s gold reserves are now located in Germany.

Bundesbank Executive Board member Andreas Dombret has called for European banking supervisors to be given strong rights to information and powers of intervention after Brexit. Only then could the clearing of euro securities still be based in London, he said in an interview with Der Spiegel.

The German economy continued to expand at a rapid pace in the second quarter. In the Bundesbank’s assessment, the strong economic growth is likely to continue in the current quarter. The Monthly Report also notes that economic output for the year as a whole could rise even somewhat more strongly than was forecast in June.

In the current low-interest-rate environment the low deposit rates for German savers are a frequent topic of debate. However, households also have other financial assets at their disposal besides deposits. Taking these into account along with the loss of purchasing power due to inflation, households achieved a real total return of 1.9% in the first quarter of 2017 according to the August Monthly Report.