Authors: Maksim P., Opus 4.5/4.6
A few days ago I saw a tweet about German bank deposit balances - at first glance it seemed positive, but for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about how enormous that number actually is.
Nearly €3 trillion. That's what German households hold in bank deposits [1]. Largest pile in Europe. It sounds solid, gives you an almost tangible image of a vault carved into rock somewhere.
But when you start asking questions, it deflates fast. Does it generate investment returns, is it roughly enough as a retirement supplement, that kind of thing.
Divide by 41 million households [2] and you get about €72,000 per family. Not nothing, but not a war chest either. Germany's public pension replaces roughly 44% of gross pre-retirement income, below the OECD average of 51% [3]. The gap between that and a comfortable retirement is pretty vast. Even quite modest estimates - something like 30k a year over 10-15 years - point to around 450k needed per household. Oops.
And worst of all, it's not even growing in real terms. At the end of 2010, German households held €1.7 trillion in deposits. By end of 2025, nearly €3 trillion [1]. That's 79% nominal growth, which sounds healthy until you subtract 38% cumulative inflation [4].
The pile transforms from evidence of financial strength to an inadequate savings earning almost nothing, slowly losing purchasing power in accounts designed for liquidity, not wealth building.
Here's the thing that seemingly a lot of people never quite internalize: real interest rates.