World Savings Day has been a sad event in recent years. Because there was practically no classic savings interest. Now, appropriately enough, October 28th falls on the day after the latest ECB decision: after 16 years without a rate hike, the European central bank has raised key interest rates for the third time in just a few months.
For banks, this means, among other things, that they will have to pay 2 percent interest in future to borrow money from the ECB. Therefore, the institutes are now increasingly trying to attract customers with savings interest on fixed-term deposits and overnight money. At the moment, savers are not getting rich because inflation is much higher. But saving interest can at least ensure that the savings in the account lose a little less in value.
Savers can find the best current offers for fixed-term deposits and overnight money on comparison sites such as FMH and Biallo or in the interest rate comparison of Stiftung Warentest. German banks are rarely in the top spots, but providers from other European countries also usually offer sufficient security thanks to EU-wide deposit insurance of 100,000 euros per account.
If you want to put your money in a fixed-term deposit account for a year, you can get 2.3 percent interest from the Estonian big bank, for example. For the Swedes from Klarna it is 2.18 percent. You can get even more out of it if you go through intermediaries like Zinspilot or Weltsparen. Weltsparen, for example, has an offer from the Lithuanian Fjord Bank for 2.5 percent interest. Via Zinspilot you can get 2.7 percent interest for a twelve-month fixed deposit at Banco do Brasil (with Austrian deposit insurance). In this specific case, this means that anyone who now puts EUR 10,000 in a fixed-term deposit account will have EUR 10,270 in one year.
Offerer
interest rate per year
minimum investment
Statutory deposit insurance
Banco do Brasil (via Zinspilot)
2.7%
1 Euro
Austria
EBI Groupe Ecobank (via Zinspilot)
2.54%
1 Euro
France
Fjord Bank (via World Savings)
2.5%
1000 Euro
Lithuania
Bigbank
2.3%
1000 Euro
Estonia
Klarna
2.18%
1 Euro
Sweden
Source: fmh.de, as of 10/28/22; Only offers with a minimum investment of 1 or 1000 euros
In general, the following currently applies: If you invest your money for less than a year, you get less interest. There is currently a maximum of 1.8 percent (interest rate per year) for a six-month term. If you choose a longer term, you can get more. The French Crédit Agricole, for example, offers 3 percent interest per year for sums of 5,000 euros or more that are invested for a fixed period of three years. If you invest 10,000 euros, you will have 900 euros in interest after three years, even without compound interest.
However, experts currently advise against putting the savings in a fixed-term deposit account for several years. Because it is generally expected that interest rates will continue to rise and that many banks will improve their offers in the coming months. FMH-Finanzberatung recommends: “Wait for the first interest rate hikes with the best fixed-term deposit for six or twelve months and then decide again.” And the financial portal Biallo also advises: “Anyone who wants to take the coming interest rate increases with them should rather choose short-term fixed-term deposits of three, six or a maximum of twelve months.”
Fixed-term deposit savers should therefore make sure when concluding the contract whether the bank will transfer the money at the end of the term of its own accord or whether it will automatically extend (“extend”) the contract if you do not actively cancel it. In the case of an extension, the contract is extended by the same term, but at the then applicable interest rates.
If you want to keep accessing your savings every day, fixed-term deposits are out of the question anyway. The alternative here is: daily allowance. In the case of overnight money, however, interest rates are currently barely above one percent. That doesn’t help much with inflation at 10 percent.
Sources and interest rate comparisons: FMH / Biallo / Stiftung Warentest / Finanztip
