Two in three banks in Belgium have had to adjust their offering of regulated savings accounts. This comes after the Federal Government agreed with the banking sector that banks would only be allowed to offer four different savings accounts.
The offering of regulated savings accounts has become simpler thanks to the agreement, the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) reported on Tuesday based on an analysis.
"Banks have scaled back their many diverse formulas and closed most of the regulated savings accounts which they no longer commercialised but which were still held by some customers," they said in a press release. "Some of those accounts offered lower remuneration than accounts which were actively commercialised."
The affected savers were given a one-off offer to switch to another regulated savings account at the same bank. Currently, only three savings accounts that are no longer commercialised are still held by customers of banks that subscribed to the agreement.
By limiting the number of savings accounts per bank, the Federal Government wants to ensure that banks automatically start offering the best rates.
The FSMA has its own online comparing tool which allows people to compare the returns of different savings accounts. Since the launch of a revamped version in March 2024, it has already been used 120,000 times.
