In May, a total of 10 billion euros in savings was added to accounts at Dutch banks. Never before has so much money been deposited in a single month. The previous record dates back to May 2020.
In total, there is now 515 billion euros in Dutch savings accounts, which is also a record. In May 2020, when we couldn’t go on holiday due to the corona crisis and many shops and restaurants were closed, 9.4 billion euros in savings was deposited.
In May of this year, it was therefore 10 billion euros, according to new figures from De Nederlandsche Bank. “That is really a lot,” says consumer economist Marten van Garderen of ING. “May is of course the month in which many people receive holiday pay, so that is easy to score. But this is well above the trend.”
The economist also looked at the growth of money in current accounts. “In total, the balance of current and savings accounts grew by 16 billion euros in May.” That is significant, but not a new record.
“We see that disposable income has increased considerably. That is partly consumed and partly saved. The fact that so much is now being saved has to do with all the uncertainty that exists,” says researcher Yvonne Adema of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), referring to the wars and trade tariffs.
“We see that consumers have more to spend, but are reluctant,” says Van Garderen, who also partly attributes this to the situation in the world.
According to CPB researcher Adema, the level of interest rates has little to do with our enormous savings urge. “The interest rate element plays only a very small role. The effects of uncertainty are much greater.”