Bank360: The population saved rather than spent before Christmas

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 01. 14. 11:25

Before the holidays, household bank accounts and securities accounts were still well-funded, and it did not seem at all that the Christmas shopping that started in November had sucked money away from savings – according to an analysis by Bank360.hu, according to which the big question is how much money from government securities and the huge interest they received migrates into bank deposits, investment certificates and shares in the yield battle that begins in January.

Overall, Hungarian families saved a huge amount of money in November last year, despite the fact that retailers tempt people to spend in the penultimate month of the year due to the many promotions and the approaching Christmas. According to data from the Hungarian National Bank (MNB), households’ bank accounts and securities accounts grew by 458.6 billion forints in fresh savings. This was complemented by a similar exchange rate gain of over HUF 450 billion on securities accounts, thanks to which the financial wealth of the entire population grew even further – at least for those who already had significant savings and were able to increase them.

Deposits continued to grow

New savings of HUF 148.3 billion flowed into bank deposits. After Donald Trump’s election victory, the forint exchange rate fell, which prompted many small investors to convert their foreign currency deposits to forints, and therefore HUF 44.5 billion left foreign currency deposits in the 11th month, while the stock of forint deposits increased by almost HUF 193 billion. The total deposit stock of households was HUF 13,317 billion at the end of the month, which is already close to the record of over HUF 13,400 billion measured in mid-2022.

In 2022 and 2023, mainly due to high-interest government securities, approximately 1,600 billion forints left retail bank deposits, but now that the interest rate on retail government securities is no longer so attractive, deposit volumes are growing again. Although most banks offer almost zero interest on time deposits, you can also find offers that offer interest rates well above inflation for average customers. At Cetelem, for example, you can get an interest rate of 6.25 percent per annum for 6 months (EBKM: 6.35), and 5.75 for 12 months. Even those who do not want to time their money can get an interest rate of 4 percent per annum.