Business sector Financial markets in 2022

KfW Group bundles its long and short-term funding activities and its liquidity, currency, interest rate and asset management for the entire group in the business sector Financial markets. KfW primarily funds its business activities in the international money and capital markets and is one of the world's most active and largest bond issuers.

Its reputation is based on its responsible behaviour and on the Federal Republic of Germany's explicit and direct guarantee (section 1a of the “Law Concerning KfW”: Federal Republic of Germany’s liability), which is reflected in high credit quality and forms the basis of an excellent financial rating. Outstanding sustainability ratings result from KfW's positioning as one of the leading sustainable promotional banks.

More on KfW’s funding activities

In order to fund its promotional business, KfW raised a record volume of around EUR 90 billion on the international capital markets in 2022. A total of 206 transactions were issued in 13 different currencies. Making up around 12% of the refinancing, 20 “Green Bonds – Made by KfW” (including top-ups) contributed EUR 10.6 billion. The share of bonds denominated in euros was 65% in 2022 (2021: 55%), US dollar-denominated bonds totalled 19% (2021: 26%), making KfW the second-largest US dollar issuer in its market segment in the world.

“Green Bonds – Made by KfW” are strongly anchored in KfW's overarching capital market strategy; they form one of the four pillars of KfW’s funding. KfW issues green bonds in different currencies, offering investors the opportunity to specifically combine the typical security and liquidity features of KfW bonds with promoting climate action and environmental protection.

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KfW ensures the liquidity of the entire KfW Group via the global money and capital markets. KfW is one of the world's most active participants in the money market, particularly through its international commercial paper programmes, which serve short-term borrowing and are important for liquidity management for the entire group. A total of EUR 176.6 billion (equivalent) was raised on the money market in 2022 through the EUR CP and USD CP programmes.

More on KfW’s money market activities

KfW's liquidity portfolio is part of its bank-wide liquidity management activities. This portfolio is a bond portfolio based on sustainable investing criteria, which comprises only bonds from public-sector issuers and supranational organisations as well as bank bonds, Pfandbriefe (German covered bonds), asset-backed securities (ABS) and asset-backed commercial papers (ABCP), which have an investment-grade rating. The KfW liquidity portfolio comprised EUR 35.4 billion at year-end 2022.

More on KfW’s liquidity portfolio

KfW supported climate action and environmental protection by investing EUR 415 million in green bonds. The funding focused on the promotional priority areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy in Europe.

Long-term borrowing via the capital markets of EUR 80 to 85 billion is planned for 2023. At least EUR 10 billion of this amount is to be raised by issuing large-volume green bonds in various currencies.

KfW's holding in Deutsche Telekom AG remained unchanged over the course of 2022 at around 829.2 million shares. This corresponded to 16.6% of the share capital of Deutsche Telekom AG as of 31 December 2022 (Federal Government 13.8% and free float 69.6%).

KfW's holding in Deutsche Post AG remained unchanged over the course of 2022 at 253.9 million shares. This corresponded to around 20.5% of the share capital of Deutsche Post AG as of 31 December 2022 (free float 79.5%).

Legal notice:
The information contained in this online Annual Report 2022 is based on KfW’s Financial Report 2022, which you can download here. Should this online Annual Report 2022, despite the great care taken in preparation of its content, contain any contradictions or errors compared to the Financial Report, the KfW Financial Report 2022 takes priority.