Savings Banks 2018: Strong growth of deposits and loans, Net sales of securities increased by over 27 percent

Germany’s 384 Savings Banks delivered a strong business performance in fiscal year 2018. “The institutions are pleased about the growth they achieved in both deposits and loans”, said Helmut Schleweis, President of the German Savings Banks Association, at today’s financial press conference of the Savings Banks Finance Group in Frankfurt/Main.

New loan commitments made by the Savings Banks in 2018 amounted to EUR 158.4 billion. This corresponds to a year-on-year increase of 5.2 percent. Loans to enterprises and self-employed persons increased by as much as 6.6 percent, while residential housing loans rose by 5.4 percent. Overall, Savings Banks had EUR 823 billion in customer loans on their books – EUR 29.4 billion more than in 2017. “Last year, Savings Banks therefore demonstrated once again that they are the key financing partner for small and medium-sized enterprises and home builders in Germany. When making lending decisions, Savings Banks paid particular attention to the loans’ sustained recoverability, to be on the safe side during economically challenging times”, said Schleweis.

Customer deposits with Savings Banks increased by 4.3 percent in 2018, to a total of EUR 950.3 billion. Deposits of retail customers rose by 4.5 percent, while deposits of business clients increased by 2.8 percent. Because of the low interest-rate environment, the inflow of funds was almost exclusively due to sight deposits – more than half of all the deposits are now overnight deposits.

“We are grateful for our customers’ trust, as reflected in this strong deposit growth during a zero-interest-rate period. In light of the current interest-rate environment with negative interest rates for credit institutions, these new deposits pose a challenge for Savings Banks. It was therefore important that Savings Banks succeeded in investing EUR 29.4 billion of the EUR 39.1 billion of new deposits in valuable lending business”, said the DSGV President.

According to Schleweis, the high percentage of overnight deposits shows that many customers do not see any attractive investments in the current environment. Against this background, accumulating savings through investments in securities has become virtually the only option for the population at large to achieve reasonable growth of assets.

The Savings Banks’ net sales of securities increased substantially last year (up 27.2 percent). With an increase of EUR 13.8 billion, Savings Banks achieved the highest growth in over 15 years. At the same time, the securities trading volume decreased by 11.8 percent. “This shows that customers with securities exposure tend to hold on to their investments. However, it also shows that the joint efforts made by Savings Banks and DekaBank to encourage more customers to accumulate savings through investments in securities are gradually bearing fruit. We still see great opportunities in this field for the future”, said Schleweis.

In the past year, the Savings Banks’ customers acquired more financial assets than ever before. Financial assets grew by more than 56 percent, corresponding to a total additional amount of EUR 56.2 billion. Schleweis: “Our retail customers benefited more than other customer segments. They increased their financial assets by EUR 47.5 billion, which corresponds to year-on-year growth of 26.4 percent.”