Overview
- In late June several banks were advertising promotional instant-access savings rates around 4 percent with a market peak of 4.05 percent at Bigbank and Norisbank offering 4.0 percent for six months under conditions.
- Most top rates apply only to new customers, run for a fixed short period, and cap the eligible amount so the headline rate cannot be relied on as a long-term yield.
- Follow-up rates after the promotion are often much lower for existing balances, for example Norisbank’s base rate is 0.75 percent and Chase drops to about 2.0 percent after its offer.
- Deposit protection remains €100,000 per depositor but schemes differ by bank location so coverage for the same headline amount can be backed by Estonia, Germany or France depending on the provider.
- Consumers should compare the effective annual return over a realistic holding period, check caps and mandatory conditions such as opening a giro account or using account-switch services, and weigh possible side effects like fees or Schufa impacts because banks are effectively paying for new relationships rather than stable funding.