Board Member Thiele explained in Hachenburg that the new digital age was posing challenges to the banking industry, with innovative payment options and many new banking and payment service providers capturing the market outside established cashless means of payment.

According to the Bundesbank's latest Monthly Report, growth in the German economy in the first quarter of 2016 was characterised, in particular, by domestic factors such as consumption and construction, whereas exports generated little stimulus.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has stressed the European Central Bank’s independence. In an interview with the Financial Times, Weidmann pointed out that the debate in Germany was too narrow and was not focusing enough on the broader macroeconomic consequences of current monetary policy.

The Federal Ministry of Finance has started issuing the €5 "Planet Earth" collector coin as of 14 April 2016. The new collector coin has met with such strong demand that it is already out of stock at many Bundesbank branches.

Consumer prices have hardly increased and have even fallen at times of late. A key reason for this is the strong decline in the oil price, making fuel and heating distinctly cheaper for consumers. For monetary policy makers, this is a clear sign to look at inflation more closely.

The Agreement on Net Financial Assets (ANFA) regulates the leeway that the euro-area central banks have for operations conducted on their own responsibility and liability.

In a speech on 5 April 2016 Christine Lagarde called for a "three-pronged approach" to secure durable growth, with coordinated efforts in the areas of structural reforms as well as in fiscal and monetary policy.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann takes a critical view of the ECB Governing Council's latest monetary policy easing.

The study "Panel on household finances" (PHF) reveals that low nominal interest rates and the rise in property prices and share prices appear not to have changed German households' investment behaviour between 2010 and 2014. According to the Bundesbank's March Monthly Report, wealth in Germany is still relatively unevenly distributed in comparison with other euro-area countries.

The German economy got off to a lively start to 2016, according to the Bundesbank's March Monthly Report. The Bank's economists believe that growth in the first quarter of 2016 should be at least as strong as in the second half of 2015.