The Slovenia Times

Slovenians remain among top savers in EU

Nekategorizirano


Despite the falling interest rates, Slovenians remain conservative savers, having half of their savings invested in the form of deposits.

According to the Statistics Office, the savings rate in Slovenia, meaning the ratio between income and the amount saved, stood at 14.8% last year.

It was the highest in 2006, at 17.3%, which put Slovenia at the top among EU members. The rate was steadily falling after that until 2013, when the trend was reversed. Data for 2015 put Slovenia in third place, following Sweden (18.7%) and Germany (17%).

The upward trend is also confirmed by data from Banka Slovenije, the central bank. Slovenian banks held EUR 39.7bn in household investments at the end of March this year, which is EUR 3bn more than at the end of 2013.

Slovenians are risk averse when it comes to investing saved money. Around half of Slovenian household savings are invested in the form of deposits, shares follow with roughly 25%, while the rest is insurance, pension schemes, securities and other claims, and loans.

The savers are however reacting to the low interest rates by abandoning term deposits for sight deposits. In 2015 the volume of term deposits by households shrunk by EUR 900m, while sight deposits were up EUR 1.6bn. The trend is continuing this year.

In 2013, the interest rates for long-term deposits in Slovenia were still twice as high as in other eurozone countries. They are now levelled with the competition and are reaching a new low, while interest rates also continue to fall for short-term deposits.

Banka Slovenije has noted that a dispersal of investments to also include more risky ones would be necessary to increase returns, while acknowledging that the transition will be very slow given the partial loss of trust in capital markets and bad past experience.

Meanwhile, Slovenian household debt has remained unchanged in the past two years despite favourable financing conditions, standing at around EUR 12.2bn.

The debt rate in Slovenia, measured as the ratio between debt and gross disposable income or between debt and GDP, is half of the average rate for the eurozone.

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