It is a pleasure to be here today. When abroad you suddenly become aware of the cultural stereotypes that surround us. And then you realise that all of them are wrong – except for the flattering ones, of course. Regarding Germans, some of the more flattering stereotypes include reliability, punctuality and exactitude.
Incidentally, these are also some of the characteristics which make for an extremely good debtor: reliability to repay your debt, punctuality to repay it on time and – maybe most important of all – exactitude to honour the debt and not accidentally forget all about it. In this respect, the Pfandbrief is indeed a typical German financial instrument.