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.
2 In view of the size of the German banking sector alone, it plays an important role for the ECB, which is responsible for the whole euro area. The German banking sector is not just relatively large, it also heterogeneous.