German Government securities

The market for German Government securities are regularly issued with original maturities ranging from 12 months to 30 years. As a result, a nearly complete nominal yield curve is permanently formed by approximately 80 highly liquid tradable German Government securities in circulation.

Maturities and volumes

German Government securities have maturities ranging from a half to 30 years. After their initial issue in the auction process and usually a number of increases, the capital market securities reach volumes of around € 15 bn to € 30 bn.

In the money market segment, the Federal Government basically issues Treasury discount paper (Bubill) with a maturity of 12 months and subsequently reopened several times as required.
Capital market products start with Federal Treasury notes (Schatz) with a maturity of two years, followed by five-year Federal notes (Bobl) and Federal bonds (Bund) primarily with maturities of ten and 30 years. In 2020 Federal bonds with maturities of 7 and 15 years have been added. Since 2006, the Federal Government has also been issuing inflation-linked securities (ILB, consisting of Bobl/€i or Bund/€i) with maturities of five to 30 years. Furthermore, the first 10-year Green Federal bond has been issued in September 2020, further issuances of Green Federal securities in the classic maturity segments have followed.

German Government securities are generally placed as single issues via auction. New issues with high volumes take place, particularly for conventional capital market securities. They are followed by several increases, finally totalling at approximately € 15 bn to approx. € 40 bn. Such increases help ensure that there is a high level of liquidity for these securities on the secondary market itself and are also used by the Federal Government to ensure that futures contracts can be delivered on the highly liquid futures market, thereby confirming their important role on the equally liquid repo market.

Characteristics

All exchange-traded nominal securities have fixed maturities with redemption on maturity at the full nominal value, as well as annual fixed interest payments.

The principal characteristics of the German Government securities market are its fixed maturities, and fixed rates of interest in the case of Schaetze, Bobls, Bunds and their green twins. Inflation-linked Federal securities also have a fixed (real) coupon. However, nominal interest amounts and repayments are in this case linked to a euro area inflation index. Bubills, in contrast, are issued in the form of discount paper. All German Government securities are issued in the form of debt register claims without paper certificates.

Other characteristics are their eligibility to serve as insurance reserve for trusts and as ECB-eligible assets. Redemption is in each case at par value, with no provision for premature redemption by the issuer through call options or drawings. Inflation-linked Federal securities are redeemed at the nominal value adjusted for inflation indexation. The smallest denomination is € 0.01 and interest is calculated on the basis of the customary methods of ICMA actual/365 or actual/366 for capital market securities and actual/360 for money market paper.

Proportions of outstanding volumes of Federal securities 2016 vs. 2021

Current Benchmark Issues of the Federal Government

Daily terms, prices and yields of listed issues (PDF)
Overview of outstanding, tradeable German Government securities as of last auction (PDF)
Monthly itemised list of outstanding German Government securities (PDF)
Monthly itemised list of outstanding German Government securities (XLS)