Annual balance sheet
Sparkasses want to invest according to profit plus
The balance of the 2024 financial year is better than expected. Now the savings banks want to boost the economy. Investments should also be made in your own future.
Increasing profits instead of a decline in profits: Germany’s savings banks did better than expected in 2024 and are a financier for an economic upswing. “The loan tap at the Sparkassen is open. And it remains open,” said the President of the German Sparkassen and Girover Association (GDP), Ulrich Reuter, in Frankfurt. “Customers want to invest – and the savings banks can help. What is still missing is an initial spark. And that has to come from politics.”
The savings banks themselves also want to invest themselves and hire around 12,000 new employees annually in the next ten years. “Sparkasses hired 11,000 new employees last year. That is 2,500 more jobs. And at a time when other places reduce – also competitors in the credit industry,” said Reuter. A total of 193,584 people work for the Sparkassen in Germany.
Before taxes, the 343 (previous year: 353) earned public law institutes last year with 7.3 billion euros 7.7 percent more than a year earlier. The bottom line is that according to the preliminary figures for 2024 there is a surplus of 3.5 percent to EUR 2.5 billion.
In the current year, Reuter expects a relatively stable result from the savings banks: “We expect a slight weakening because we do not believe that the demand for credit is already making a clear start this year.” That will be the case in 2026.
“Careful upward tendency” in housing construction
Last year, the savings banks agreed to volume of 143 billion euros – an increase of 10.7 percent of the previous year. Reuter sees a “cautious upward tendency” in housing: 45.5 billion euros in new loans said the institutes for private housing. That was about 25 percent more than a year earlier, but from a low level.
For possible credit cases, the savings banks covered 2.3 billion euros. Despite increasing bankruptcy figures in some sectors, the association does not expect any insolvency wave – “if the right political switches are now being released from bureaucratic requirements, calculable energy costs and more competitiveness,” as Reuter carried out.
Interest excess increases despite higher interest payments
A good 1,182 billion euros and thus three percent more than a year ago had customers at the late Sparkasse accounts. Two thirds of them lie on giro and call money accounts, where the money can be quickly overlooked if necessary.
The fact that such funds are often puny or not at all interests regularly criticize the business policy of the savings banks. According to the GDP, the institutes paid 5.2 billion euros more interest than a year earlier. In total, however, the savings banks benefited from the interest environment: their interest surplus increased by 1.1 percent to 28.7 billion euros.
dpa
Source: Stern
