The high inflation is partially eating up the high additional savings of many German citizens from the corona pandemic. As can be seen from the data from the Bundesbank and the Federal Statistical Office, the phase of extraordinarily strong growth in bank deposits is over. At the same time, private consumer spending shot up in the first quarter. This reflects, at least in part, the higher cost of living.
“At the moment, the growth in bank and savings deposits is literally falling off the cliff,” says Peter Barkow, head of the consulting firm Barkow Consulting, which specializes in the financial sector.
Paradoxically, despite the economic crisis, the corona pandemic has given many households in Germany greater fortune. In the first Corona year, 2020, private sight deposits – these are the balances in current, call money and savings accounts without a term or notice period – swelled by 165 billion euros. The main cause was the pandemic, because lockdowns and other corona restrictions meant consumption was backlogged with no opportunity to spend money. Last year, this sum increased again by 90 billion to a total of 1.76 trillion euros at the end of December.
But since then almost nothing has changed. At the end of March it was half a billion less than at the beginning of the year. “Now we have inflation on the one hand and perhaps a certain normalization of consumer behavior on the other,” says Barkow.