After the neo-brokers, who go after customers with comparatively high interest rates on the depot clearing accounts, the group around the Internet comparison platform Check24 has now apparently discovered higher interest rates as an advertising argument.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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As the bank of the company called C24 announced on Tuesday, it wants to pay 2 percent interest on its current accounts from April 1 to the end of the year.

And not only on the paid account, but also on the Smartgiro ​​account, for which no monthly basic fee is due, as a spokesman emphasized.

What is the catch?

The aim of the matter is apparently to get new customers for current accounts via the interest rate.

In order to keep the cost of this promotion from getting out of hand, the Bank has capped the amount of interest on deposits and the period for which the interest applies.  

Limited period, limited amounts

The interest rate should apply to amounts up to 50,000 euros, both for new and existing customers.

The company reports that existing customers benefited from interest on their current accounts after agreeing to the General Terms and Conditions (GTC) from April 1st.

All other consumers could open such an account with the bank in a few minutes.

While the classic banks are often reluctant to pass on the ECB's higher interest rates to savers, they are apparently facing increasing competition in this area.

There are also interest rates in the order of 2 percent on some call money accounts of other banks, but then often only for a limited time.

The neobrokers had also designed their advertising interest on this scale, with 2 percent at Trade Republic and 2.3 percent at Scalable Capital, but only for a fee-based model there.   

In contrast to call money accounts, consumers would not have to move money to a separate account when earning interest on the current account, emphasizes C24.

Money received in the checking account would immediately bear interest and would be available to cover monthly expenses, for example by direct debit or card payment.

"From April, C24 Bank will be the only bank in Germany to offer interest of 2.0 percent on all current account models," says Lasse Schmid, General Manager at C24 Bank.

“Account balances and cash receipts automatically earn interest.

Our customers benefit from attractive interest rates from day one and from the first euro.

That makes our checking account models unique.”

The credit interest is guaranteed to be 2.0 percent until December 31, 2023.

From January 1, 2024, the interest rate will be variable and will be 1.5 percentage points below the deposit rate of the European Central Bank.

Interest would be credited quarterly.

The bank launched the Check 24 comparison portal in 2020 after previously applying for a banking license.

This bank C24 also attracted some attention at the time because the comparison portal Check24 has millions of customers and large advertising budgets.

At the time, it was said that customers' preferred access to the new bank should be via smartphone.