The activities of all credit institutions in Germany are supervised by the Federal Banking Supervisory Office in Berlin. If despite this control a credit institution gets into financial difficulties, the deposit insurance institutions of the banking trade partially cover savers’ losses.

Financial markets. Hardly any other sector of the German economy has grown as vigorously as the financial services sector. The assets of Germany’s banks increased from DM 3.9 trillion at the end of 1988 to DM 7.5 trillion at the end of 1995. Whether one looks at savings deposits, stock and security holdings, loans or cashless payments - all the indicators of Germany’s financial markets have skyrocketed in the past decade.

ln 1996 Germany’s stock exchanges registered a record turnover of DM 8.9 trillion (compared with DM8.1 trillion the previous year). Approximately three fourths °f this amount was accounted for by fixed interest rate securities and one fourth by shares.