Spaniards seek profitability in deposits abroad: they exceed 3% in Italy and France
Despite the latest pause made by the European Central Bank (ECB) in raising rates, the profitability offered by European banks on deposits continues to distance itself from the Spanish ones.. In fact, they are one point higher in profitability in comparable countries such as France and Italy.
Time deposits in our country exceeded the barrier of 100,000 million euros in September, for the first time in three years. This implies that the appetite to seek profitability for savings without assuming risk (since deposits guarantee the return of the money invested) continues to be the main option for national investors.. According to the VIII Savings Barometer of the Inverco Observatory, nine out of ten savers channel their money in this way, and the majority are considering resorting to these products in the future taking into account that the trend is for their profitability to increase and adjusts towards the European average.
According to data from the end of September, the average return on a deposit in Spain is 2.33% and rises slightly to 2.35% for the few deposits that offer a maturity of between one and two years.. In the euro zone this same average is 3.08%, and is driven by a neighboring economy, such as France.. The French bank remunerates, on average, deposits with 3.6%, this is about 130 basis points above the Spanish one.. In Italy, the financial sector reaches 3.54% on average, while in Germany it is 3.22%. Holland, the country with the most money in bank accounts of Spanish residents, also surpasses our country, with about 2.9% on average in its term savings products.
In Spain, in the last year, families have increased their money in time deposits by almost 40,000 million, somewhat less than the amount they have withdrawn from their bank accounts, since another part has been used either to repay mortgages or to transferred to investment funds, much more profitable than deposits. To date there is no real commercial offer from the country's large banks, those that control 80%-90% of the market.. Only CaixaBank launched a deposit paid at 1% for twelve months with the option of adding another 1% by contracting other products. And yet it is below the national average promoted by small actors.
great fortunes
Given the situation of uncertainty caused by the amnesty and the agreements between the PSOE, ERC and Junts in recent days, the largest private banks in Spain consulted by this newspaper assure that, for the moment, “customers are calm” and, Above all, “they have not detected requests to move the money out of Spain”. There are few exceptions that speak of a certain “nervousness” in clients from outside Catalonia, as is the case of Madrid, who would be evaluating options..
Neither do the largest fund managers in the country. One of them assures that “political noise is always there” in recent times, and it still does not affect their business. “We have been in legal uncertainty for years and the market has already discounted it,” says another financial source.