Change in pension
Cash payment of pensions is abolished (yes, that has been possible so far)
Remove a pension without a bank account? Was possible so far. Some pensioners can still be paid out their pension bar. So it will soon be over. Those affected must act.
When paying the pension, there is a change with a bizarre factor: the possibility will soon be eliminated to have the pension cash paid out. Sounds weird, but some thousand pensioners really make it that way.
Instead of being transferred to the account, you will receive a check every month, which you can then redeem in a postbank branch for cash. The highlight of it: you don’t need your own bank account, neither at Postbank nor anywhere else.
At the end of the year, this exotic type of pension payment, which is called “payment instructions for offsetting” (ZZV), will be set. “You must have your pension transfered to an account from December 2025 at the latest,” says the Deutsche Post website. On behalf of the statutory pension insurance, the Pension’s pension service will deal with the payment of the statutory pensions.
3,300 people will receive pension in cash
Only a fraction of all pensioners are affected by the change. At the moment, almost 3300 out of around 21 million pension recipients could be paid out the pension by payment instructions for offsetting, a spokeswoman for the post office said on request. “The number of cases is falling quickly because those affected are currently writing down and asked to switch to unacceptable payment methods.”
In February 2024, according to a paper from the German Pension Insurance, 5,600 pensions were paid in cash. 1300 pension recipients were able to use the service free of charge because they were older than 75 years or were classified as hardship. The rest paid a monthly fee of around 9 euros. However, the transfer of the pension is free of charge.
If you actually don’t have an account, you now have to set up one in order to be able to continue pension. Since 2016, every consumer has had the right to a basic account in the EU that performs all fundamental functions of payment transactions. Alternatively, the pension can also be transferred to the account of a trusted person like the spouse.
In any case, those affected should act: Anyone who does not call the pension service by the end of the year will no longer receive any pension payments. But they are not lost: the pension payment is interrupted to inquire about the account connection, said the mail spoke. “If pension payments run, they will be paid.” The form for notification of the account connection can be found on the website of the Deutsche Post.
bak
Source: Stern
