Judging, not least, by the robust growth rate of loans to the private sector, there is some evidence that monetary expansion in the euro area is increasingly being fostered by the low level of interest rates.
That corresponds to roughly 250% of Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 28% of the total assets in the monetary union. In Germany there is also a comparatively large number of banks. If we leave out the branches of foreign banks in Germany, there are around 1,700 credit institutions. That constitutes one-third of the total number of banks in the monetary union.