ING is the most popular direct bank among Germans. But in the middle of last year bad news came that hit like a bomb. ING introduced default interest and stole his clients’ money. In the meantime, however, these are history again. And now there is another boon for all the bank’s customers. Savers are finally rewarded.
ING is the first major bank to take this action
Time for free accounts seems to be running out. While direct banks like ING, DKB or Comdirect have long been the free alternative to savings banks and the like, since they never charged account management fees, many are now pulling the rope. Of course, negative interest rates will disappear again. However, if you as an ING customer do not have a regular income of at least 700 euros, the bank charges monthly fees of around 5 euros for the account. Anyone using it as a second account recently had to pay for it. And the giro card, still called EC card by many today, is no longer free.
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But the ING is now bringing back interest. This means that anyone with an overnight money account with the bank has so far received a paltry 0.001 percent. From 6 December, however, the interest rate will rise to 0.3 percent. For example, if you have 10,000 euros in your call money account, you will be credited with 30 euros per year instead of 10 cents in December. New customers get even more. If you open an account with ING today, you will receive 1% per year on the call money for four months up to a balance of 50,000 euros.
It was just the beginning
“We will be the first major bank in Germany to return the call money to everyone,” says Nick Jue. But this is only the beginning, points out the boss of ING Germany. “Our overnight interest rates are here to stay.” The bank passes on some of its profit from rising interest rates to customers. “We think the era of zero interest rates is over now,” says Jue.
