Not even rise in interest rates nor the forecasts that the European Central Bank (ECB) will bring the official price of money to 4% at the end of the year has served to make the average weighted rate (interest on new deposits), published by the Bank of Spain, is transferred to the remuneration of family deposits. On the other hand, the banks are beginning to improve the remuneration of term products for companies, while penalizing those of families.
So, the bank paid with 1.66% the deposits of non-financial companies in January, the latest data published by the Spanish supervisor, which represents an improvement of 3.75% compared to December, when it stood at 1.60%. This interest practically triples what banks pay to families, which closed the first month of the year at 0.59%. In just twelve months, entities have stopped charging companies for their deposits (-0.24%) to pay them almost 7 times more.
In fact, the remuneration of company deposits has been reflecting a positive evolution since the beginning of last yearwhich led it to break the 1% barrier in November 2022. With this new rise in the weighted average rate, the interest companies receive for leaving their liquidity in banks stands at the highest level since 2013. In That year, interest, according to data from the Bank of Spain, stood at 1.30%.
As for the family deposits, the new interest rates stand at 0.59%, the same level as in November, but which represents a fall of 0.64% compared to the month of December, that is, a month-on-month decrease of almost 8% (in concrete of 7.81%). In this sense, banks are resisting making family savings profitable, despite the fact that there is interest in conservative products, as reflected in the demand from individuals for Treasury Bills. All in all, this interest is the highest since the end of 2014.
Estefanía González, Kelisto’s personal finance spokesperson, explains that this drop is probably due to “the majority of operations -and those monitored by the Bank of Spain- are operations with Spanish banks and there we continue to see little (or almost zero) movement”. conclusion mode progress is still slow or non-existent.
The key, the ease of deposits at 2%
The truth is that banks are in no hurry to improve the remuneration of fixed-term deposits, especially taking into account that the ECB has not only raised the price of money, but also the deposit facility, that is, the interest paid by the European supervisor to financial institutions for having the money placed in the body. So, in less than a year it has gone from -0.50% to 2%.
Industry sources explain that this has a positive effect on the banking business. And it must not be forgotten that families have almost one trillion euros in accounts and deposits, with an average return on new operations of 0.59%, which means that if the bank placed that liquidity in the ECB it would be making a profit of almost 241 basis points, that is to say. In the case of corporate deposits, the margin is narrower. It must also be taken into account that the ECB will raise rates on March 16 and could place the deposit rate at 2.5%.
An exception would be paid accounts, where certain banks are offering returns of 2% (even 5% if the payroll is domiciled), although with limitations regarding the maximum amount to be remunerated such as time. This is because these products allow them to win more and more “juicy” customers, says González. In addition, through these products you can reach to a higher volume of customers: the user has the perception that in order to take out a fixed-term deposit they have to have larger savings.
