“An overdraft facility is a good thing for weathering a short-term financial contraction,” says Oliver Meyer, Managing Director of Verivox Finanzvergleich GmbH. However, permanently borrowing money this way is not a good idea.
Reschedule and save your overdraft
The much cheaper alternative is the classic installment loan. Current Verivox analysis shows how high potential savings can actually be:
Anyone who has 3,000 euros permanently in the red with their current account pays the average overdraft interest rate of 9.61 percent over the same period of three years. 445 EUR benefits. With an average installment loan with an interest rate of 5.35 percent, it is only € 248, and is currently the cheapest Installment loan with interest rate of 2.43% up to only € 112. So it could be 197 euros or even at best € 333 sparen, if you reschedule your overdraft.
Find cheap installment loans at VERIVOX
Stiftung Warentest: The interest on overdraft remains prohibitively expensive
The Verivox comparison is based, among other things, on a comprehensive survey conducted by Stiftung Warentest: In October 2020, overdraft benefits from 1,241 banks, savings banks, Volksbanks, and Raiffeisenbanks were identified and compared. The result was the 9.61% ratio mentioned above for the overdraft facility. In comparison, direct banks in particular were able to achieve fairly low interest rates, while several subsidiary banks had significantly higher interest rates.