Savings banks are worried about savers – Bayern boss Reuter: “Eight percent inflation is devastating”
Created: 08/24/2022, 15:06
By: Thomas Eldersch
Bavaria's head of savings banks, Ulrich Reuter, is concerned that the ECB will give up on interest rate hikes.
© Arnulf Hettrich/Stephan Görlich/imago images
People can no longer afford to save.
Bavaria's savings bank boss Reuter is worried and sees the ECB as having a duty.
Munich – In July, the European Central Bank (ECB) raised interest rates for the first time in eleven years.
By a whole 0.5 percent.
This means that there is interest on invested money again.
The German saver dream lives again.
But it is not that easy.
Because it's not just interest rates that are rising again.
Inflation is also at record levels.
The savings banks therefore fear that there will be fewer savers rather than more.
(By the way: Our Bayern newsletter informs you about all the important stories from Bavaria. Register here.)
Savings banks fear that private customers can no longer afford to save
According to the federal government's website, inflation was 7.6 percent in June.
It even fell a little after 7.9 percent in May.
Nevertheless, it is higher than it has been for 50 years.
The reasons are the increasing demand - many people would now be able to afford more things again, as they did in the times of the corona pandemic.
But a lower supply is also a price driver - keyword energy and gas crisis.
Food prices have also risen sharply since the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
So when people have to spend more money to make a living, they have less money to put in the bank.
The banks are noticing that too.
The President of the Baden-Württemberg Savings Banks Association, Peter Schneider, said on Focus-Online at the end of July: "Meanwhile, around 40 percent of our private customers cannot put any money aside." In this context, he speaks of a "dramatic number".
However, since this development does not yet take into account the increased energy prices, it could be 50 percent of customers who no longer have any opportunity to save.
The head of the Munich Savings Bank, Ralf Fleischer, gives tips on how investing can still work out. “Waiting is not a smart strategy”
ECB raises interest rates by 0.5 percent (video)
Bavaria's savings bank boss Reuter: The ECB reacted too late to inflation
The head of the Bavarian savings banks, Ulrich Reuter, sees it similarly.
At the presentation of the half-year balance sheet in Munich at the end of July, he even said that due to the rapid inflation and the looming recession, the ECB could "question its interest rate turnaround".
In his opinion, Frankfurt should have started raising interest rates as early as 2021.
"Since mid-2021 at the latest, there have been signs that the inflation target will be clearly missed, that the price increases are not temporary effects."
also read
Söder intervenes in the Winnetou debate - and reaps bad reactions
"Very proud": Team Regensburg celebrates triumph at the European Championships in Munich
It is the savers who suffer, especially those on a tight budget.
“In the meantime, our customers are suffering from the rapidly increasing prices combined with somewhat uncertain future prospects.
They are also pinched again as savers - it used to be that zero interest with one to two percent inflation equals a real loss in value, so there is now a positive interest rate, but with over eight percent inflation there is an even greater loss in value - that is of course devastating, especially for small savers,” says Reuter.
In his opinion, "stable signals from the ECB" are now needed so that the money in the bank does not lose value faster than it earns interest.
(phone)
All news and stories from Bavaria can now also be found on our brand new Facebook page Merkur Bayern.
