2023-10-10 14:26:00
One hundred and fifty million euros. This is the additional contribution requested from banks as part of the latest budgetary control. This amount, which may seem insignificant compared to the profits earned by banks in Belgium (7.6 billion euros in 2022 net profits), nevertheless aroused the wrath of the Febelfin federation.
“The measures taken are regrettable and particularly incomprehensible for a government which has prided itself for months on wanting to increase returns for savers. The new decisions are yet another strictly budgetary measure which hits ordinary retail banking and taxes the same activity once more and once more, namely savings,” the press release underlines. And added that “this measure once once more impacts the ability of banks to grant credit to businesses and households.”
Important Nuance
Can we deduce that (as usual) it is the saver who will pay this tax by not being properly remunerated? This seems clear even if there is an important nuance. Unlike in the past, the tax increase only targets banks with more than 50 billion deposits, i.e. BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius, ING and KBC. The rate received by the State on the amount of deposits increases from 0.1323% to 0.1758%. The rest of the sector remains taxed at 0.1323%. Which a priori gives it a little more room to increase its rates, and thus put pressure on the big banks. A medium-sized bank like Argenta has already started to bring in competition by raising its rates on its savings accounts to a level higher than that of the large banks. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to get them moving.
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Another measure targets all banks. This is the end of the tax deductibility of bank tax. Of the revenue of 150 million, it represents around 25 million. Not enough to have any influence on the profitability of banks or on remuneration policy.
Protocol in 2024
The challenge for the government will be to prevent this tax (which brought in around 1.7 billion in 2022) from serving as a pretext for banks not to increase their rates and from turning out, as Febelfin asserts, “a tax on the saver”.
It is with this in mind that the government has been working on transparency measures for several months now. Alexia Bertrand, Secretary of State for Consumer Protection (Open VLD) presented proposals last July. “Banks will be obliged to provide information either by email or through their banking app every three months not only on the most attractive rates but above all on the rate level. It’s up to each customer to decide followingwards. We are finalizing the protocol. We hope that this can come into force at the beginning of 2024,” she explains to us.
Second measure to better inform savers, the government is instructing the FSMA, the financial markets regulator, to make its savings calculator more accessible to all by the end of 2023 and for all regulated savings accounts offered in Belgium.
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