Money deposited in Spanish banks drops by 18 billion euros

People are once again eating into their savings to make ends meet, new data from the Bank of Spain has shown.

The amount of money held by private individuals and companies in Spanish bank accounts fell by more than 18 billion euros between January and February. This was the biggest drop over a two-month period since the financial crisis of 2008.

The fall also indicated that some people are taking money out of banks in search of better interest rates for their savings elsewhere.

At the end of February, people in Spain had some 986 billion euros in bank current and savings accounts, compared with a record figure of over 1,000 billion at the end of 2022.

In January, 13 billion euros more was taken out by customers than deposited. This coincided with the rush in the first weeks of 2023 to buy higher-interest-rate government bonds

In February, this downward trend continued, with a further five billion euros withdrawn from traditional current accounts and bank savings products.