Enlarge image
Cyclists in front of the ECB Tower in Frankfurt: The central bank has recently not touched the key interest rate, banks are expecting a cloudy interest rate environment
Photo:
Andreas Arnold/dpa
Despite unchanged high key interest rates, more and more banks are lowering their fixed-term deposit conditions: Anyone who invests their money for two years currently receives an average of 2.99 percent interest from banks active across the country. This is proven by an evaluation by the comparison portal Verivox. At the beginning of November, for example, banks active nationwide offered fixed deposit interest rates that were on average 0.4 percentage points higher (3.39 percent).
The credit institutions expected that the interest rate environment would deteriorate in the foreseeable future, and they were already “factoring this into their fixed-term deposit conditions today,” explained Oliver Maier from Verivox: “We are now seeing fixed-term deposit interest rates falling again in all market segments and across all terms.”
According to the analysis, regional credit institutions pay significantly less interest on average. Savings bank customers receive an average of 2.18 percent if they invest money for two years. There is an average of 2.22 percent at the regional cooperative banks, which include the local Volks- and Raiffeisenbanken as well as the PSD and Sparda banks.
However, the best fixed-term deposit offers on the market still have such high interest rates that it is worthwhile for savers to get started, explained Maier. “Anyone who has even larger reserves of money parked in their current account should act as soon as possible and shift some of these savings into a fixed-term deposit.” This means that savers no longer have to worry about future interest rate cuts.
Daily allowance not yet affected
When it comes to overnight money, Verivox has not yet noticed any falling interest rates across the market. An average of 1.72 percent is currently achieved by overnight investments in banks active across the country. Unlike fixed-term deposits, banks can adapt their conditions for daily deposits to current market developments at any time and do not have to price in the expected interest rate development in advance.
For the analysis, Verivox evaluated the current daily and fixed-term deposit conditions of around 800 banks and savings banks for an investment amount of 10,000 euros. According to the portal, all credit institutions with daily and fixed-term deposit offers that publish their interest rates freely accessible on their website were taken into account. The cut-off date for the average interest rate evaluation was February 7th.
mamk/AFP