If you have run into the labels M1, M2 or M3 without knowing what sits behind them, this page is for you. No economics background needed and no formulas. Just what these three numbers measure, what they do not measure, and why their movement affects the money sitting in your account.
See the money supply live → Opens the “Dashboard” tab on moneyprinter.uk directlyBanknotes and coins in circulation, plus everything sitting in current accounts. This is what you can spend this second, with nothing to unlock first.
All of M1, plus deposits maturing within two years and savings redeemable at up to three months' notice. Money that is not quite in your pocket, but close.
All of M2, plus repurchase agreements, money market fund shares and debt securities under two years. The broadest measure, and the one the ECB watches most closely.
The money supply is the total quantity of money that exists in a currency area at a given moment. Not the wealth produced, not government debt, not the value of the stock market: simply how many units of currency are in circulation.
That distinction matters, because the two get mixed up constantly. GDP measures what gets produced over a year. The money supply measures a stock, like the water level in a bathtub. One is a flow, the other is a volume.
That stock is not fixed. It grows mainly when commercial banks extend credit: contrary to a widespread assumption, most money is not printed by the central bank, it is created by banks at the moment they lend. It is destroyed when those loans are repaid.
The classification rests on a single criterion: how easily the money can be spent. The quicker it can be mobilised, the closer to the centre it sits.
M1 holds the most liquid forms: notes, coins, and current account balances. This money is spendable within the second.
M2 contains all of M1 and adds short-term savings, the kind that becomes available again within weeks or months. M3 contains all of M2 and adds money market instruments, one step further from everyday spending.
Each circle therefore fully contains the previous one. A euro counted in M1 is also counted in M2 and in M3: these three figures do not add up, they nest.
Every central bank draws its own boundaries. The US Federal Reserve stopped publishing M3 in 2006, judging that the aggregate did not add enough information to justify the cost of collecting it. It also redefined M1 in 2020 by moving savings deposits into it, which made the chart jump overnight without a single extra dollar being created.
So comparing US M2 against euro area M2 tells you very little, because they do not contain the same things. Comparing US M2 against its own past, or euro area M3 against its own past, remains entirely meaningful.
That is why the site shows each zone using the aggregate its own central bank puts forward, with its own source, rather than forcing a single definition onto everyone.
The idea that more money mechanically means more inflation is a simplification. Over long stretches, a currency growing far faster than output does tend to lose value. But year to year, the link is loose and lagged.
Part of the money created never reaches everyday consumption: it flows into property, equities or dormant savings. It pushes up the price of those assets without ever showing up in the consumer price index, which only tracks a basket of everyday goods and services.
That gap is exactly what the site tries to make visible. It puts the pace of money creation next to the pace of official inflation, without claiming one explains the other, simply so you can see when they diverge.
Take a concrete case. Money left in a non-interest-bearing account loses nothing in face value: a thousand euros stays a thousand euros. But if the total quantity of money in circulation grew over that period, your relative share of the pie shrank.
It is a different and complementary way of measuring what your money is worth. Inflation tells you how many loaves of bread you can still buy. The money supply tells you what fraction of the total currency you still hold. Both are worth watching.
They are three nested measures of the money in circulation, ranked by how easily it can be spent: M1 holds immediately available money, M2 adds short-term savings, M3 adds money market instruments. Each aggregate fully contains the previous one, so they do not add up.
Most money in circulation is created by commercial banks at the moment they grant a loan, and destroyed when that loan is repaid. The central bank issues banknotes and steers the conditions under which this creation happens, but it does not directly print the bulk of the money that circulates.
The Federal Reserve stopped publishing that aggregate in 2006, judging that it did not add enough information relative to the cost of collecting it. It still publishes M1 and M2. The European Central Bank, by contrast, continues to track M3 as its headline measure for the euro area.
No, not mechanically and not immediately. Over long periods, a currency growing much faster than output tends to lose value, but year to year the link is loose and lagged. Part of the money created flows into property or equities, pushing those prices up without appearing in the consumer price index.