Croatian Postal Bank (HPB) announced a significant increase in interest rates on savings last month, introducing a new savings product that allows clients to achieve a yield of up to three percent. As they informed us, in the first week of offering the new product, they recorded high interest from all citizens across the entire business network, through all available channels.
‒ Reactions to the new product are extremely positive, and the Bank is recording the desired and targeted effects ‒ they communicated to us, although they did not wish to disclose detailed figures regarding the level of interest from citizens in the new savings product. Furthermore, as they stated, HPB clients can manage their funds, including savings deposits, without any fees, and in the case of early termination of savings, clients are credited interest for the nearest achieved term, without charging a fee for early termination.
As currently no bank has raised interest rates on deposits to the same level as HPB, we wondered how much it costs to transfer savings from one bank to another. The answer to this question was provided by Erste Bank.
‒ When contracting a type of savings, clients deposit a certain amount for a specified period. Depending on the deposit period, the interest rate is determined. For example, if a client contracts Standard Savings at Erste Bank for a period of up to 12 months, the interest rate will be 0.30 percent, while for a period of 36.01 months, the interest rate will be 1.50 percent. Interest is paid out at the end of the contracted period. Accordingly, if a client decides to withdraw savings before the end of the contracted period, they can always do so without paying a fee, but in that case, they will not receive the contracted interest, but rather interest at sight at a rate of 0.02 percent ‒ they communicated from Erste Bank.
