Many old premium savings plans contained an inadmissible clause.
Savings bank customers in particular could therefore have lost thousands of euros in interest.
Very few have received any money so far.
Now the consumer advice centers are hoping for clear guidelines from Karlsruhe.
Karlsruhe - Thousands of savers with old premium savings contracts would actually be entitled to additional interest payments - but the banks are taking their time with it.
In order to put pressure on the consumer associations have launched model declaratory actions against several savings banks.
The first of these will be heard on Wednesday (11.00 a.m.) at the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe.
It remains to be seen whether the verdict will be announced immediately afterwards.
(Az. XI ZR 234/20)
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The background to this is that very many of the premium savings contracts concluded in the 1990s and 2000s contained inadmissible clauses. Volksbank and Raiffeisenbanken are also affected, but this is primarily a problem for the savings banks. The clauses entitle the banks to unilaterally largely freely adjust the interest rate. At least in the case of long-term contracts, something like this would be unreasonable for customers, the BGH decided in 2004.
Anyone who has an inadmissible clause in their contract has not automatically received too little interest.
In many cases this is the case.
Nevertheless, many of those affected have not received any additional payments or have received too little.
Consumer advocates accuse the savings banks of playing for time.
Because many contracts have now expired or have been terminated.
This means that customer claims threaten to become statute-barred.
The complaining consumer center Saxony is now hoping that the BGH will make precise specifications this time as to how the interest is to be calculated.
This would result in the amount of the outstanding claims.
"We want every affected consumer to get the interest he is entitled to down to the last cent," says Justiziar Michael Hummel.
More than 1,300 victims have registered for the model lawsuit against Stadt- und Kreissparkasse Leipzig, which is now being negotiated.
According to the calculations of the consumer advocates, the savings bank paid them an average of EUR 3,100 too little.
In the meantime, the financial supervisory authority Bafin has intervened in the dispute over the interest rate adjustment clauses.
She accuses the banks of tacitly changing the old contracts themselves after 2004 and of having disregarded BGH requirements.
The interest was also not retrospectively calculated.
The Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (DK), which represents the interests of all five central associations and thus also the savings banks, announced on request: “The BGH has the opportunity to bring clarity for the affected customers of Sparkasse Leipzig and possibly also for the banking industry in general can - we welcome that. ”dpa
