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Wiesbaden (dpa) - According to the Federal Statistical Office, the fees for the current account have risen above average in recent years.
From 2015 to 2019, the price increases totaled 25 percent, as the Wiesbaden authority announced.
In the past year alone, bank customers had to pay 4.7 percent more than a year earlier.
In contrast, the overall inflation rate only increased by 1.4 percent in 2019.
According to the information, the increase in costs continued this year.
In October, consumers had to pay 6.4 percent more for their private checking accounts than a year earlier.
The inflation rate, however, was also due to the reduction in VAT that month at minus 0.2 percent.
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One reason for the fees, which have been rising steadily on average since 2015, is likely to be the lack of income for credit institutions from deposits, investment products and loans, the authority suspected.
For a long time, banks and savings banks earned well by collecting more interest on loans than they were paying savings customers.
But the difference between the two, the net interest income, is shrinking during the slack interest rate.
If banks park funds at the European Central Bank (ECB), they also have to pay penalty interest, currently 0.5 percent.
Even if there are now tax exemptions for certain sums, the industry is complaining of billions.
While banks and some savings banks used to use the free account specifically to acquire customers, higher costs and expensive branches are forcing the institutes to rethink.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201124-99-444841 / 3
Communication from the Federal Office