The Ides of March aureus is one of the rarest and therefore most valuable Roman coins in the world.  One of these is housed in the British Museum and another in the Bundesbank's Money Museum. In the first part of our short video series showing highlights from the Money Museum, presenter Silviana Ursu explains the story behind this special coin.

The animated film clearly shows why prices should still whole, neither rise sharply fall and what role the central bank plays in securing stable prices.

Whilst Europe is home to successful payment systems – Germany’s girocard scheme, for instance – these are often only national in scope. How can payment operations be harmonised across Europe and made more convenient for consumers?

The emergency monetary policy measures taken in response to the coronavirus pandemic have impacted noticeably on the Deutsche Bundesbank’s balance sheet.

The Bundesbank is not distributing a profit for 2020 – for the first time since 1979. The main reason was the greater level of risk provisioning, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann explained at the press conference to present the annual accounts in Frankfurt am Main. The emergency monetary policy measures taken in response to the coronavirus pandemic are consequently having a noticeable impact on the Bundesbank’s balance sheet. In the previous year, the Bundesbank had distributed a profit of €5.9 billion.

In 2020, the Bundesbank registered approximately 58,800 counterfeit euro banknotes with a nominal value of €2.9 million in German payments. The number of counterfeits thus rose by 6.5% on the year, while the nominal value of the banknotes seized fell by 14.3%.

The Bundesbank’s National Analysis Centre in Mainz receives around 30,000 requests every year for the replacement of damaged cash. In order to facilitate reconstruction in cases involving a large number of banknote fragments, the Bundesbank joined forces with the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (Fraunhofer IPK) to develop a digital system for reconstructing badly damaged euro banknotes based on “ePuzzler” technology.

The Bundesbank expects the German economy to grow strongly again after a limited setback in the final quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021. According to current projections, real gross domestic product could pick up sharply in the following two years and reach its pre-crisis level again in early 2022. This is predicated on the pandemic containment measures being quickly loosened from spring 2021 and ultimately expiring altogether in the early months of 2022.

The virtual conference “Future of Payments in Europe” – the centrepiece of our virtual event series – discussed different perspectives on the latest developments in European payments, most importantly the Retail Payments Strategy of the European Commission, the European Payments Initiative and the potential role of a digital euro in the payments landscape. 

The virtual conference “Future of Payments in Europe” – the centrepiece of our virtual event series – discussed different perspectives on the latest developments in European payments, most importantly the Retail Payments Strategy of the European Commission, the European Payments Initiative and the potential role of a digital euro in the payments landscape.