Current account – the all-rounder among bank accounts
A checking account forms the basis for cash flow in Germany: Wages or salaries are regularly paid into a checking account, fixed expenses such as rent, insurance contributions and energy costs are usually debited from the checking account.
More and more people are using the current account as a virtual wallet – if you don’t want to pay by credit card and still want to be “liquid”, you can use your giro card to pay for purchases and consumer spending. Money in a checking account is also available at any time, with an overdraft facility you can “overdraw” the checking account for short-term financing bottlenecks and access to the checking account balance is possible at a bank counter, by post, at a machine, via the Internet or by telephone – a checking account offers everything that a modern bank account should offer.
But despite its importance for everyday life, using a current account at many banks and savings banks is not free of charge. The reason: the provision of checking accounts has become increasingly unattractive for financial institutions; it is not uncommon for banks to even make losses if they provide you as a customer with a free current account. As a result, many branch banks have introduced account management fees or tied the free accounts to conditions.
So that you don’t have to pay unnecessary fees for your checking account, we have something for you free checking accounts tracked down – and compared with each other. In the following you will learn what distinguishes a checking account without account management fees, what you should generally look out for in a bank account and where you can find the best free checking account.