Madrid (EFE).- The large Spanish bank avoids, for the moment, paying interest to its clients for the savings they entrust to it, beyond some specific campaigns more oriented towards attracting clients and their subsequent linking, although it makes available profitable alternatives such as guaranteed investment funds.
The rise in interest rates in the euro area -up to 3%- has only translated, for the moment, into profits for banks, which have seen their income grow from giving credit or managing funds, but it is still not noticeable ” on the other side” of banking operations, that is, in paying the customer for keeping their money and disposing of it.
But savers are hungry for profitability after years of drought and also need to combat the blow of inflation in their disposable income, which explains the long lines that have recently formed before the Bank of Spain to buy Treasury bills, which are more profitable than the vast majority of deposits.
And this is because, as explained by the Value School expert Alberto Iglesias, with this type of asset, which guarantees a concrete return within a pre-set term, purchasing power can also be lost in the short term, since they remunerate below inflation.
The big bench speaks
Although almost all bankers recently acknowledged in their 2022 account filings that “at some point” they will have to pay for the savings, it appears that it will not be in the coming months because they are not required to do so automatically and also have the saddlebags (liquidity) full after the covid.
And they also did not charge private clients when the rates were negative, only “some” of corporate banks, they recalled.
In any case, they recognized that everything depends on what the competition does, which is why they are already looking askance at each other to see who is the first to decide to remunerate passive and set trends.
The CEO of Bankinter, María Dolores Dancausa, ruled out that there is currently a “generalized strategy” to remunerate deposits and spoke rather of “specific campaigns”, although she admitted that some smaller banks may be choosing to be “more aggressive”.
The CEO of Banco Sabadell, César González-Bueno, considered that “in the long term” the remuneration of deposits will end up rising, but he defended that at the moment there are guaranteed funds with “much higher” profitability and with liquidity windows, specific dates where the money can be recovered.
The CEO of BBVA, Onur Genç, made it equally clear that the bank’s plans “to date” are not to improve the remuneration of deposits and listed a list of products with more liquidity, including bills and government bonds.
But when asked about the possibility of doing so in the future, he acknowledged that it would depend on how the competition acts, the same thing that the president of Banco Santander, Ana Botín, said a day later, who added that “at some point” they will remunerate the savings.
For his part, the “number two” of CaixaBank, Gonzalo Gortázar, insisted that paying or not paying for deposits is a decision made by each bank and responds to the commercial strategy they design.
And he agreed with the rest of his colleagues from the big banks that investment funds are more attractive, for example those of Treasury debt that can have a good return and also a different tax treatment. “We have the vision that there are better products.”
Only the smallest and foreigners pay
Meanwhile, only a few small entities and a handful of banks of foreign origin have begun to offer attractive products, such as Renault Bank, with a 24-month deposit at 2.83%, according to a report published by the financial products consumer association Asufin. .
Likewise, EBN Banco pays 2.35% for its 18-month deposit, which previously paid 2.30%.
Be careful with paid accounts
Likewise, Helpmycash experts warn about paid accounts, with which some Spanish entities have already begun to compete with each other and that offer returns that sometimes reach up to 5%, but with conditions.
The requirements can range from domiciling a salary, although “not any salary” since they can ask for a minimum income, as well as domiciliating receipts, contracting other products or making minimal use of the card, which may not be interesting for the client , or, without going any further, that it is not within your reach.
Another “problem” is that the maximum balance that these accounts remunerate is usually 5,000 euros the first year, so in the end the benefits are not very high, although there are exceptions, they explain.
