Current accounts, the beating of 2022. Costs up by 132 euros. Yet the banks benefit from the rate hike

While the rates that banks charge to disburse mortgages and loans go upthe interest on current accounts (ie the money we lend to banks) remain nailed to zero. Worse yet. management costs go up. According to Observatory reports ConfrontaConti.it ed SOStariffe.it and reports the newspaper The print, in 2022 the cost of an account has risen on average of 8% with an additional disbursement for each account holder of 132 euros. The price increases concern a bit of everything, from simple account management, counter withdrawals and wire transfers. The increases are particularly marked per i conti on line, in some cases it comes to 26% increases despite these products having originally presented themselves on the market declaiming advantageous conditions in terms of costs. Online accounts remain cheaper than traditional ones but the gap is narrowing

The banks shrug, some defend themselves by invoking inflation, others the cost of maintaining active branches in the area with a decreasing clientele. The fact is that in the meantime the rates charged to customers asking for money are constantly increasing. Second Bank of Italy interest rates on mortgages including ancillary costs (Global Effective Annual Rate, Taeg) rose in November to 3.55% against 3.23% in October. The rates on new disbursements of consumer credit went up to 9.25% (8.93 in the previous month). Interest rates on new loans to non-financial corporations were 2.94 per cent (2.54 in the previous month).

A natural dynamic since last July the European Central Bank has started to raise the cost of money (basically the interest that banks pay to lend each other the money deposited with the ECB) and this has a cascading effect on all types of financing. In recent years, the ECB’s rates had even ended up in negative territory (basically the banks were paid to take money) and in some countries, especially the Northern Europe, this situation has led some lenders to offer customers mortgages at negative rates (a final sum was repaid which was lower than the loan requested). Now things are changing and returning to normal, the banks have noticed, their customers have not.