News from 2018-10-25 / KfW Research

What TARGET balances are and how they emerge

The debate over TARGET balances continues unabated. This is hardly surprising because the claims of the Deutsche Bundesbank on the TARGET2 system have grown to nearly EUR 1,000 billion. But exactly how serious are the risks for the German state and taxpayer?

Our paper explains how the balances emerge, to what extent monetary policy contributes to their increase and why TARGET balances do not constitute loans from the Bundesbank to other euro countries. Clearly, the construction of the monetary union still has many gaps that have to be closed. But TARGET2, a key element of the financial infrastructure in Europe, is not one of them.

What TARGET balances are and how they emerge

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