Does a central bank make profits and losses? How do they come about? And what was our financial position at the end of 2022?

Our host Katie Ranger puts these questions to press officer William Lelieveldt on The ECB Podcast.

The views expressed are those of the speakers and not necessarily those of the European Central Bank.

Published on 23 February 2023 and recorded on 13 February 2023.

In this episode:

01:14 – How does a central bank make a profit?

How a central bank earns money, where its profits come from and what it does with its income.

03:49 – How does a central bank make a loss?

What sort of thing is a cost for a central bank and how it spends its money.

04:55 – Our annual accounts in the current economic environment

How higher interest rates affect our profits and losses, how we choose which bonds to buy and whether we could have avoided making a loss.

08:55 – The impact of making a loss

How making a loss affects people in the euro area and what we expect our balance sheet to look like in a few years’ time.

11:48 – Our guest’s hot tip

Additional material:

Press release: Financial statements of the ECB for 2022, 23 February 2023

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2023/html/ecb.pr230223~398b74f1dc.en.html

Publication: Annual Accounts 2022, 23 February 2023

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/annual/annual-accounts/html/ecb.annualaccounts2022~ee9329bf6f.en.html

Explainer: Profits and losses of the ECB and the euro area national central banks: where do they come from?

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/educational/explainers/tell-me-more/html/ecb_profits.en.html

Explainer: Accountability

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/orga/accountability/html/index.en.html

European Central Bank

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html

You can also listen to The ECB Podcast on SoundCloud, Spotify, Deezer, Stitcher, YouTube, Amazon Music and many more pod.link/ecbpodcast