The savings of European households are increasingly rising due to the increase in interest rates, whose deposit rate rose in September to historical highs of 4%. This has resulted in a new rise in the profitability of time deposits in the euro zone which, for the first time since January 2012, has exceeded the 3% barrier in the month of August. According to data collected by the European Central Bank (ECB), all large economies, with the sole exception of Spain, offer returns above the European average above that 3%. French citizens are the ones who enjoy a better deal for the money they keep stored in the bank. On average, French entities exceed 3.56% profitability for term savings, followed by Italian entities where deposits were, on average, above 3.36%. This is more than 100 basis points above Spanish banks, which occupy seventh place from the bottom with 2.36%, according to data from the Bank of Spain. The largest economy in the Eurozone, Germany, pays its liabilities at 3.11%.
Behind Spain are sister countries such as Portugal and Greece, still below the 2% level, Ireland, at 2.09% on average in August, and the last country in the ranking is Cyprus, with 1.1%. Only Estonia and Belgium exceed the 3.6% level.
In general terms, the trend continues. As there is more supply for one-year deposits, European entities offer more discounts on these products than those with longer maturities. Spanish banks continue to lag behind in remunerating their clients’ money. The last time national deposits paid a higher return than the European average was in the midst of the Lehman Brothers crisis, just before everything collapsed, with returns higher than 5%.
Where Spain does have an advantage over the euro zone is in what it is paying for the term balance of companies. It has been above this level for three months and in August it stagnated at the level of 3.11%. In any case, it is also below the European average, which closed the summer at over 3.4%. In this item, the leader in the classification is France, which increasingly narrows the gap between households and large companies when it comes to remunerating savings, since entities offer 3.76% on average. And history repeats itself. Germany and Italy are also above the average for deposits to community companies, at 3.5% and 3.42%, respectively.
On the other side of the balance, the truth is that the increase in the remuneration of banks’ liabilities corresponds to what they charge for the assets. The average type of financing for the purchase of a home that European families must assume also continues to rise. In August it reached levels of 3.88%, maximums not seen since the summer of 2011. There are only five countries below this level, one of them Spain and also France.