More and more banks are raising overnight interest rates for their customers. The savings banks are lagging far behind. (Symbolic image) © rheinmainfoto/imago-images
More and more banks are raising overnight interest rates for their customers. Many savings banks are not in a hurry - unlike the adjustment of overdraft rates.
Munich – The European Central Bank (ECB) has initiated the turnaround in interest rates in the fight against inflation – and ensured that banks in Germany can once again offer their customers more interest on their money. More and more banks are therefore raising interest rates on overnight money. At the peak, savers can secure up to 3.25 percent interest on their savings at the end of April, according to an evaluation by the comparison portal Verivox.
Savings banks: Low overnight interest rates, high overdraft rates
On the other hand, the situation is different for savings banks, where customers have to make do with lower or even zero interest rates, as a recent analysis by Verivox suggests (as of May 10, 2023). For this purpose, the portal evaluated the overnight interest rates of all 286 savings banks, for which the conditions could be determined freely accessible on the website.
86 of these savings banks, i.e. a total of about 30 percent, have an overnight interest rate of 0 percent. On the other hand, the overdraft rates are at dizzying heights of up to 14.33 percent, as a table with selected zero-interest savings banks shows:
The highest overnight interest rates among the savings banks are offered by Sparkasse Altenburger Land at 1.30 percent. Only five savings banks offer interest rates of at least one percent, as an overview of the savings banks with the highest overnight interest rates shows:
Verivox boss: "Savings banks with overdraft interest rates below 10 percent are an exception"
Oliver Maier, Managing Director of Verivox Finanzvergleich GmbH, explains: "Many savings banks take their time to pass on rising interest rates to their savings customers. Even after seven key interest rate hikes in a row, overnight investors are left completely empty-handed at 30 percent of all savings banks." Conversely, however, customers would feel the rise in interest rates very clearly when pricing overdrafts, Maier said: "Savings banks with overdraft rates below 10 percent are now an exception."
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In a recent interview with the Münchner Merkur, Bavaria's savings bank president Ulrich Reuter also admitted: "The savings banks are not among the market leaders when it comes to interest rates." This would be due to the fact that long-term loans would have to be financed and interest rates in this portfolio would only rise slowly.