Saving more than €100,000: how to spread your money across banks
· facts checked on · 4 min read · Spaarradar editorial team
The deposit guarantee covers €100,000 per person per bank. How to divide a larger amount without losing interest, which brands share one licence, and what applies after the sale of your home.
An inheritance, the sale of a house or business, or simply years of saving: if you have more than €100,000 at one bank, you run a risk on the excess that is easy to avoid. Spreading takes an afternoon of work and does not have to cost you any interest.
The rule: per person, per licence
The deposit guarantee covers €100,000 per person per banking licence. Three things are often overlooked.
- Everything at one bank counts together. Your current account, savings account and deposits at the same bank together form one amount.
- Interest counts too. If you have €100,000 and €2,500 in interest is added, that interest falls outside the cover. So leave room: with €95,000 per bank you are still fine after a few years of interest.
- It is about the licence, not the brand. Two brands of the same bank share one limit.
With a joint account, each account holder is entitled to their own €100,000. So a couple is covered up to €200,000 on a joint account, provided they have nothing else in their own name at that bank.
Brands that share one licence
These are the cases from our comparison in which different names fall under one licence.
| Licence | Brands that count together |
|---|---|
| ASN Bank N.V. (formerly de Volksbank) | ASN Bank, SNS, RegioBank |
| Open Bank, S.A. (Spain) | Openbank, Santander Consumer Bank |
| Deutsche Bank AG (Germany) | EuroExtra and RenteBoost, both via Raisin |
If you have €80,000 at SNS and €60,000 at ASN Bank, then €100,000 of that is covered in total and €40,000 is not. The page banks and deposit guarantee shows for each bank which licence it falls under, and on an offer we mention it if the licence is shared.
How to divide a large amount
- Decide what you want to keep free. That part goes to instant-access accounts, the rest can go into deposits.
- Enter your whole amount in the comparison. Offers where your amount is not fully covered are hidden by default. You see how many there are and can show them with one click.
- Divide it into parts of at most €95,000 and choose the best bank for each part. Numbers two and three in the ranking often pay only a few hundredths less than number one.
- Check the licences of the banks you choose, so that two parts do not end up under one limit after all.
- Put it in an overview. Bank, amount, term and end date. With deposits you want to know when money comes free.
With a platform such as Raisin you open accounts at various European banks with a single Raisin account. Each bank has its own licence and therefore its own limit of €100,000. That makes spreading more practical, although the rule still applies that everything at the same bank counts together. All offers are on saving via Raisin.
A temporarily high balance after the sale of your home
For one situation the Dutch scheme has wider cover. Money that is demonstrably linked to buying or selling your own home has extra protection for up to six months after it is deposited, up to €500,000 on top of the ordinary €100,000. That gives you time to spread it calmly. It applies to banks under the Dutch scheme; other countries have their own rules for temporarily high balances, with different amounts and periods. The exact conditions are on the website of De Nederlandsche Bank.
Spreading across countries?
The guarantee is €100,000 by law in every EEA country, but each country has its own fund. If you are spreading a large amount, you can also choose to divide it across several countries. What differs between the schemes in practice is explained in is saving at a foreign bank safe?. With foreign deposits, also watch out for withholding tax.
Deposits for the part you can do without
With large amounts a fixed rate pays off even more: a tenth of a per cent difference is already €300 per year on €300,000. With a deposit ladder you spread the money across terms and across banks, and a part comes free every year.
Sources
- De Nederlandsche Bank: up to what amount is my money protected? (in Dutch)
- Which brands share one licence: banks and deposit guarantee
Not advice. Rates are gross and can change; the tables in this article show the position at the moment you open the page. How we calculate and check is described in the methodology.
