Savings plan with negative interest rates? Not even

The higher regional court of Stuttgart has ruled in a dispute on the calculation of negative interest rates in a savings contract in favor of a consumer. It quashed a judgment of the district court of Tübingen, which had decided in July 2018 in favour of a savings Bank. the By Harald Freiberger Harald Freiberger

Born in 1962 in Dingolfing, Germany, studied journalism in Munich. 13 years at the evening newspaper in Munich, most recently as head of economic. Since 2008, the SZ, first as a sheet maker for money, from 2009 to 2015 as a correspondent for banks in Frankfurt. Since then, again in Munich. Topics. send an email

It is a judgment of fundamental importance: A Bank may require customers with a savings contract, there is no negative reason for interest, even if it is a higher bonus interest rate and the interest rate is the bottom line positive. The higher regional court of Stuttgart ruled in the dispute between the Kreissparkasse Tübingen and the consumer advice centre of Baden-Württemberg (Az. 4 U 184/18). It quashed a judgment of the district court of Tübingen, which had decided in July 2018 for the benefit of the Bank.

"it is not clear that a loan interest rate may, in principle, Negative slip," said Niels Nauhauser of the consumer. The tübingen savings Bank was the first Bank to the consumer, therefore, would have complained. Other money houses would have indicated it already. Negative interest rates and charge with bonus claims that this is now become more difficult.

the Negative interest rate is decided by "fundamental principles of the legal loan regulations are not compatible"

The court of appeal that the Kreissparkasse Tübingen used in your Riester savings plan "Pension-Plus" clauses, the non-transparent and the consumers, "unreasonably to disadvantage". The savings Bank sales of the product from 2002 to 2015.

for example, a contract of 2011: it says that there is a variable basic interest rate is currently 1.1 percent, which "will be credited at the end of the financial year". Add to this a bonus interest rate, which rises in a staggered manner with the time - up to 1.75 per cent after 21 years of the contract period.

The customer was after a few years, that the credited interest rate was lower than the bonus interest rate. He went to the Verbraucherzentrale, and found that the savings Bank had lowered the basic interest rate in 2016 to be Negative, first of all, to minus 0.4 percent. Also in the notice of charges. The background was probably that the European Central Bank of banks since 2014, the interest rate requires a Negative, if this Park for your money in the short term.

The regional court had decided that this was not "unreasonable disadvantage of consumers" because "to date, no saver in sum, a fee" have to pay. The court sees it differently: A negative interest rate was "with the fundamental principles of the legal loan regulations are not compatible", especially in the case of a Riester contract in which to save for retirement.

in Addition, non-transparent, and the criteria by which the variable base interest rate is calculated. "The message is clear: negative interest rates have lost in a savings agreement, you may not be deducted from a Bonus," says consumer advocate Nauhauser. The savings Bank can go against the judgment of the Federal court in Revision.