In a clear sign of heightened risk, we have had to add € billion to our provisions for general risks since I took over responsibility for the Bundesbank’s risk control function.
If you had told me, when I took office, that the Bundesbank’s balance sheet – of which I have been a co-signee for eight full years, remember – would expand more than three-fold, that TARGET2 claims would make up roughly half of total assets, and that more than 40% of our interest income would be generated by negative interest rates, that would have been beyond the stretch of my imagination.