The new €20 banknote provides for even greater security in cash payments. Its new security feature - a window in the hologram stripe - would be very difficult to forge, says Bundesbank Executive Board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele. The new banknote was launched on the 25th of November.

"Without data, policies cannot move forward," said Min Zhu of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the 3rd IMF Statistics Forum in Frankfurt. Around 150 data producers, policy makers and academics discussed the future of statistics at the high-level, two-day conference, which was hosted by the Bundesbank.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has been awarded the International Prize of the Hayek Foundation. The award was mainly in recognition of Mr Weidmann's commitment to stability-oriented monetary policymaking by central banks and his opposition to excessive government debt.

The longer euro-area monetary policy remains loose, the greater its risks. In this regard, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, speaking at the European Banking Congress in Frankfurt am Main, referred to excesses in the financial markets and problems being faced by life insurers. Moreover, "... we should not ignore the risk that fiscal policy could get used to the very low interest rates".

Communication in real time is something we all take for granted. And consumers nowadays expect to be able to bank just as quickly. Bundesbank Executive Board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele says that providers vying for a stake in the new digital services market will only prevail if they can inspire long-term confidence in consumers.

According to the current issue of the Bundesbank's Monthly Report, the German economy remained on its growth path in the third quarter of 2015. Real GDP rose by a seasonally and calendar-adjusted 0.3% between July and September compared with the previous quarter. Domestic consumption was the main driver of economic growth.

In a speech held in Frankfurt, Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, criticised the ultra-accommodative monetary policy across the world, claiming that it would not sustainably achieve higher growth and that it could also have tremendous consequences for financial stability. "The sooner we get out, the better," he said.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has voiced concerns over the continued ultra-loose monetary policy in the Eurosystem. The longer policy remains highly accommodative, the more the attendant risks and side-effects will come into play, he told the Tagesspiegel newspaper. The key to resolving the euro-area crisis, he said, lies with politicians, not with central banks.

The Bundesbank says that the euro area's common framework for supervising its most important credit institutions (SSM) has got off to a flying start. "But there are still some aspects we can improve upon," Executive Board member Andreas Dombret noted in comments marking the SSM's first anniversary.

It is still worth saving with nominal rates so low, according to a Bundesbank survey into household saving and investment behaviour. Looking at bank deposits as well as other forms of investment, the total return on a typical portfolio is not exceptionally low overall.