Federal securities are bearer bonds that are traded daily and can therefore change hands at any time. The identity of the person or institution holding them is not recorded. However, the Federal Government’s creditor structure can be estimated using various sources of information. These include public data, such as the official statistics on aggregated holder data from the ECB’s Securities Holdings Statistics (SHS) that were previously published here, annual reports from major investors, or media coverage. The Finance Agency uses these official sources, as well as its own discussions with investors, to verify the plausibility of the data.
The creditor statistics published here from 2026, however, are based on trading data from members of the Bund Issues Auction Group. Based on their purchases and sales to end investors, and with knowledge of the maturities of the traded Federal securities, it is possible to estimate holdings by investor type and region.
Other Europe = Europe outside the euro area; Other = Africa and Arab countries
Trends in holdings over the last 10 years
As of the second quarter of 2026, investors from Asia hold more Federal securities than ever before. They have achieved this record with the strongest growth of any region: up 18 %. Holdings in the rest of Europe and the ‘other’ regions also rose disproportionately to the outstanding volume, by 13 % and 12% respectively, whilst the by far most significant investors in the euro area purchased only marginally more.
In line with the significant reduction in hedge fund holdings, American investors, with holdings down by almost 40 %, are clearly on the selling side.
Real Money = asset managers, insurance companies, pension funds and other (in particular retail and non-financial corporate investors)
Trends in Holdings over the last 10 Years
The fact that trends in trading volumes should not be taken as an indicator of potential portfolio reallocations is demonstrated once again by real money investors and hedge funds between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026. The former increased their holdings of Federal securities most significantly, by a fifth to a new record high of € 437 bn, whilst their trading volumes fell. In stark contrast, hedge funds almost halved their holdings whilst trading volumes were significantly higher. Banks and brokers also reached a new record high of € 363 bn. However, like central banks and other institutional investors (OI), their holdings are growing roughly in line with the (7 %) rising level of federal debt and the outstanding volume of federal securities.
The Finance Agency holds around 10 % of the total volume of all Federal securities in the Federal Government’s own account – known as the ‘own holdings’. These Federal securities are used every day to promote liquidity on the secondary market and the repo market. So securities that are in short supply in trading can be released onto the market. To build up and maintain the own portfolio, a portion of each issue is retained – the so-called retention quote.