opinion poll
More Germans overdid their accounts at the start of the year
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There are a number of issues coming up for the new year. Many accounts have apparently slipped into the red, as a new survey shows.
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Berlin. A look at the account balance at the start of the year can be sobering for many households. December is traditionally a high-spending month. At the start of the year, many insurers, but also clubs and organizations, deduct their annual contributions. If you’re not careful, you can quickly slip into the red.
And according to a new survey, that happened to many again this year. At the beginning of 2022, there were significantly more Germans in debt than a year ago. This is the result of a representative long-term survey by the market research company Civey on behalf of the credit portal Smava. According to this, 9.5 percent of those surveyed over the age of 18 stated at the beginning of 2022 that they were using an overdraft facility – an increase of 17 percent compared to the previous year. Extrapolated, it would correspond to around 6.6 million Germans.
Loans: Overdrafts can get expensive very quickly
If the account slips into the red, the dispocredit due, i.e. the overdraft facility. And he can have it all. The Stiftung Warentest recently came to the conclusion that the average interest rate is currently 9.51 percent.
With large sums, this can quickly get into the money, other loans can be significantly cheaper. With 16.8 percent of those surveyed with up to 250 euros and just as many in the range between 251 and 500 euros, a large proportion are still moderately in the red. However, 37.9 percent also stated that they had overdrawn their account with more than 2,000 euros after the holidays and at the start of the new year.
Survey: Every second dispo user wants to balance the account within a month
However, more than every second overdraft user (51.6 percent) expects to be able to balance the account within a month. It gets expensive if you overdraw the account for a longer period of time. And at least 9.7 percent of those surveyed calculate that it will take them six months to be in the black again, and a further 8.2 percent even reckon with a whole year.
According to this, 14.7 percent of those surveyed will need more than a year. “With almost 10 percent interest, the overdraft facility is a very expensive way of borrowing money. It should therefore only be used for a short time,” warned Smava Managing Director Alexander Artopé.
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