Overview
- Verivox, using a €10,000 test balance and data frozen March 13, 2026, found 65 of 827 banks pay 0.00% on overnight deposit (Tagesgeld) accounts after rounding rates to two decimals that treat 0.001% as zero.
- Zero-interest offers appear mainly at regional institutions such as Sparkassen and cooperative banks, while only 2 of 98 nationwide banks show a 0.00% rate.
- Low returns persist at local lenders, with 43% of Sparkassen and 38% of regional cooperatives paying no more than 0.25% on these flexible savings accounts.
- The study also flags product quirks, since seven banks pay interest only above higher balance thresholds and ten list parallel accounts that do earn interest.
- Verivox urges long-time customers to check old, non-promoted accounts that may still earn nothing, noting better options such as ongoing offers near 2%, short-term promos up to about 3.4%, and Scalable Capital’s 2.5% deal that parks part of the balance in money-market funds outside statutory deposit insurance.