ECB box

Claiming 83,000 of the 600,000 jobs in Frankfurt, banks are taken very seriously around these parts. 83 percent of Frankfurt’s GDP is based in service industries, so if inhabitants don’t work directly for the banks themselves, they probably work for companies which somehow indirectly support them. The GDP per Frankfurt employee is a whopping €70,165, and the balance sheet of banks headquartered in Frankfurt comes to a staggering €2,218 billion. There are over 315 banks here, including 177 foreign institutions, which is probably why you can walk around town and hear five different languages on any given day.
The most famous bank is the European Central Bank (ECB, www.ecb.int) at the helm of the eurozone economy, officially making Frankfurt the city of the euro. The new president of the European Central Bank, Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet was inaugurated November 1. A far cry from the glamorous and coveted position of his American counterpart Alan Greenspan, Trichet barely made the cut. Weighed down by a huge banking scandal in connection with his work at Credit Lyonnais, his predecessor, Dutchman Wim Duisenberg, was forced to stay on months after his initially planned term was meant to be over.
Duisenberg’s lack of a sure touch managed to afford him the nickname ‘Dim Wim’, and Trichet is considered a smoother, and bolder choice, almost universally considered to command the respect of the financial community at large. Duisenberg’s Dutch background made him a neutral choice at the beginning of his ECB tenure for nervous Germans fearing a heavy French influence. Scandals behind him, Trichet seems poised to do the job. At least press conferences given by Trichet should improve tremendously (Duisenberg was apparently not fond of them, joking once that he had to take a pill before each one started.
But economic policy may also take a turn for the ECB. Even though the national banks exert considerable influence over eurozone economic decision-making, giving limited freedom to Trichet, the financial community assumes that it can look forward to more realistic inflation rates, more transparent dealings and slimmer administration, and an assertion of the independence of the ECB.
Money-buffs can learn more about money, the ECB and the eurozone economy at the Geld Museum; see how to lose money at the Börse stock market. The ECB building houses a gift and bookshop with plenty of literature and coin sets (Kaiserstraße 29, tel. 134 40).