Survey on personal savings - Numerous individuals struggle to amass savings.
Out of the 2140 German adults surveyed by YouGov for Postbank, almost 20% cannot or refuse to save money. Asked about where their savings are stored, just under 18% responded accordingly.
Among the 1596 participants who declared themselves to be savers, about a third (33.2%) don't earn interest on most of their money. This is mainly because they leave it in their non-interest-bearing current account (23.3%) or keep it in cash (6.9%).
Nearly a third (32.1%) of these savers invest their savings mainly in interest-bearing investments. The most popular option: call money accounts (15.5%), where money can be transferred quickly if needed.
A significant proportion of savers are keen to keep their options open and may switch banks for better interest rates: 6.9% would move their funds even if the rate difference is minor, while 34.1% would make the switch if the rate difference is significant.
Following the termination of the European Central Bank's (ECB) zero interest rate policy in summer 2022 and the subsequent series of ten interest rate hikes, banks and savings banks are earning money again as they can now park money with the central bank. However, some financial institutions have lowered their fixed-rate deposit rates once more, in anticipation of the ECB potentially lowering key interest rates in the eurozone in June.
As per the YouGov survey for Postbank, roughly 12% of people remain committed to their bank despite better offers from competitors, while approximately 25.6% find switching banks to be too troublesome.
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Source: www.stern.de
