The central banking system

Germany’s central bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, is headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, which is the country’s main financial center and also the base of the European Central Bank, the EU’s chief financial institution. Before the circulation of the euro, the common currency of the EU, in 2002, the Bundesbank issued the deutsche mark (the country’s former currency) and oversaw its circulation. As the EU’s most powerful national central bank, the Bundesbank played a pivotal role in the planning of and preparation for the euro. One of its primary roles now is to implement the monetary policies of the European System of Central Banks to help maintain the euro’s stability.

Upon the establishment of the Bundesbank, its preeminent characteristic was its independence from government control, instituted to prevent a recurrence of the severe inflation experienced in 1922–23, when the government resorted to the printing press for finance. The federal bank maintained a policy of careful control of credit and concern for the international exchange rate of the deutsche mark, which had made West Germany the leading financial power in post-World War II Europe. The Bundesbank demonstrated its genuine independence in 1991 when it insisted that additional government expenditure for the eastern sector be covered by unwelcome tax increases rather than by borrowing. Individual Land (state) central banks are the Bundesbank’s representatives at state level.

The private banking sector

There are hundreds of commercial banks, of which the most important are the Deutsche Bank, the KfW Bankengruppe, and the Commerzbank, though mergers have tended to shrink the number of major banks. Apart from conducting normal banking business, German banks provide financing for private businesses. As a result, the stock exchanges in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and other cities are less influential in providing finance for industry than parallel institutions in other countries.

Public and cooperative institutions

Germany has several types of public financial institutions, including credit and personal checking institutions and cooperative banks. Under public law, credit institutions operate as savings banks, and the state banks act as central banks and clearinghouses for the savings banks and focus on regional financing. The state-owned Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (“Development Loan Corporation”) channels public aid to developing countries.

The cooperative banks are headed by the DZ Bank (Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, or “German Central Cooperative Bank”), which serves as a central bank for some 1,500 industrial and agricultural credit cooperatives.There are also public and private mortgage banks, installment credit institutions, and the now-privatized postal check and postal savings systems, which were once operated by the federal postal service.

In East Germany the state bank was subordinate to the Ministry of Finance and designed to be a tool of central planning. It was part of a unified system that embraced not only central and local government but also banks, insurance companies, and industries, all of which were directed in their use of funds.

With economic union on July 1, 1990, East Germany came under the central banking system of the Deutsche Bundesbank, which effected the conversion of the eastern system to the West German mark. Progressively, the western German commercial banks, insurance companies, and all the other financial institutions moved in. The ruined East German economy, the unemployment assistance fund, and the bankrupt state and local administrations all required massive financial transfusions from the federal government and the West German states. In stages, consumer subsidies have been removed, while wages, social insurance payments, and taxes have been progressively raised toward western levels.