The turnaround in interest rates is now being felt not only in building interest, but also in interest on savings.

The interest rates offered by banks to savers are still well below the inflation rate of 10 percent.

After all, savers can now get around 3 percent interest a year for fixed deposits for two years.

In the case of call money, the peak value among private banks is 1.4 percent, but this is only guaranteed for four months.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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The cooperative banks can currently offer more: The Raiffeisenbank im Hochtaunus from Bad Homburg recently made a name for itself with overnight interest rates of 1.5 percent, but only guaranteed for four months.

The savings banks are even further behind, the Kreissparkasse Köln is already one of the best in the group with 0.25 percent on the call money account.

But if you consider that just a few months ago savers had to pay negative interest if they wanted to let the bank use their savings for a while, that's a striking change.

Interest rate comparison of the 50 largest private and direct banks

"The turnaround in interest rates has meanwhile also reached private banks," writes the consumer portal Biallo in a comparison of the conditions of the 50 largest private and direct banks, which was exclusively available to the FAZ in advance.

The result: a good every second bank (56 percent) now has an overnight money account in the program again, 43 percent of which lured new customers with a promotional interest rate.

Deutsche Bank is also paying its customers an overnight interest rate of 0.25 percent again after a dry spell of several years.

Commerzbank customers have so far received nothing here.

In return, Commerzbank customers could get more interest on fixed-term deposits – up to 1.8 percent – ​​than at Deutsche Bank with up to 1.5 percent.

On average, the overnight interest rates of the top 50 banks were 0.49 percent.

The Biallo index, which also includes foreign institutes, comes to 0.73 percent.

The best offer in the comparison made on December 7 was offered by Bank 11, based in Neuss, which pays 1.4 percent for four months for new customers.

The maximum investment amount for the promotional interest is 100,000 euros.

After the guarantee period, the interest rate falls to the current level of 0.5 percent for existing customers.

The other places in the overnight money ranking are followed by VW Bank with 1.1 percent, guaranteed for six months, and ING with 1 percent, guaranteed for four months.

Individual fixed deposit interest rates of more than 3 percent

60 percent of the banks in comparison offer time deposit accounts;

the average interest rate for fixed deposits for one year is 1.44 percent.

The best provider was Grenke Bank from Baden-Baden with 2.5 percent.

The bank is a subsidiary of the leasing company Grenke AG.

Apparently, the bank was so overwhelmed by inquiries with this interest rate that it removed the offer from its website again, but apparently still accepts further inquiries via other sales channels such as the Internet portal Weltsparen.

Akbank, based in Eschborn, a subsidiary of a Turkish bank, advertises, as does Merkurbank, a listed private bank from Munich, with 2.25 percent for fixed-term deposits for one year.

The interest rates for fixed deposits over three years are somewhat higher.

On average, the comparison comes to 1.77 percent per year.

Here, too, Grenke Bank was the leader with 3.05 percent, ahead of Ford Bank in Cologne with 2.8 percent and Bank 11 with 2.6 percent.

It might be worth taking a quick look at foreign institutes.

Deposits of up to EUR 100,000 are protected within the EU by the respective deposit insurance.

The consumer centers are somewhat cautious with such offers, they think that very security-conscious investors should rather stick to the institutes with the German deposit insurance.

Fintech Klarna from Sweden, for example, offers 2.84 percent for fixed-term deposits for one year after two interest rate increases.

With a term of three years, the Austrian Kommunalkredit Invest leads the field – with an interest rate of 3.25 percent per year.