A profitability of 3%, it seems good, but it costs. For months, it has been the favorite number for risk-free savings. Banks, comparators and platforms have put them on display, in promotions and campaigns. Deposits, Treasury bills, interest-bearing accounts. The figure is there, brilliant, but less and less accessible.
And these 3% do not fall from the sky. Sometimes this means tying up money for years. Or requires domiciliation of income. Or it is only applied during the first months. And today, as the year is almost over, it is starting to become clear that this profitability is no longer as easy to achieve as it was a few months ago.
Until recently, a little attention was enough to find deposits at 3% APR. Today, you have to search. The deals still exist, but many already come with fine print. Renault Banque, for example, maintains an APR of 2.63% on its 36-month deposit, but does not allow early termination. SME Bank, via Raisin, offers 2.75% for 24 months, although it requires a minimum of 10,000 euros and does not allow you to withdraw the money in advance. And the most flexible products, like MyInvestor’s one-month deposit, reach just 2.5%.
Deposits that allow you to break the contract, such as Pibank’s 12-month deposit, lower profitability to 2.02%. The early cancellation penalty usually involves lose accrued interest. That is, liquidity or profitability, but not both.
Paid accounts aren’t what they used to be. Some, like the Health B100 account, continue to offer up to 3.2% APR. But he only pays the first 50,000 euros. Others, like Trade Republic, offer 2.02% without conditions, but without exceeding that psychological barrier of 3% which seemed so common a few months ago.
On the radar of conservative savers, Treasuries continue to appear as a solid alternative. But even here, the 3% has disappeared. During the last auction of the year, organized last December, the Treasury placed three and nine-month bills with respective yields of 1.999% and 2.016%. Not bad, but insufficient to beat inflation which stood at 3% in November.
The difference is not just profitability. Invoices, unlike a deposit, are not subject to withholding at the time of their collection. Your tax is paid later, in the tax return. But concretely, the net return they leave today is around 16 euros per 1,000 invested for a year, compared to the more than 20 euros that a good deposit can offer without commissions.
Of course, there is another difference that is not so clear. To invest in Letters, you need at least 1,000 euros. And although they can be purchased without commissions from the Treasury, most choose to do it through their bankwhere custody or transfer costs occur. A small erosion which, added to tight profitability, can tip the scales.
Money market funds continue to capture savings
These frictions explain why another third way, money market funds, continues to be among the preferred preferences of savers. According to the latest data from Inverco, at the end of October they accumulated more than 23.5 billion euros in assets and, in November, they dominated the sector’s net deposits, with inflows of more than 1.2 billion.
The appeal of these funds lies not so much in the type they offer as in the way in which they do it. They invest in very short-term debt, notes, promissory notes and monetary assets of high credit quality. Its profitability evolves in a range close to 2% annualizedconforms to the official types, but with two characteristics that make the difference. Daily liquidity and deferred taxation. Until the fund is repaid, it is not taxed. And that, in an environment of stable rates, begins to matter.
Timing is again essential. A two or three year deposit today sets a known profitability, but requires us to assume that the environment in 2026 will be similar to the current one. Letters allow you to renew the contract every few months, but require knowing the auctions and prices. Money market funds, on the other hand, function as a sort of middle ground. The money is not locked in and automatically adjusts to rate changes, no matter how small.
Meanwhile, financial institutions are adjusting their offerings with surgical precision. Big banks have reduced the number of long-term deposits with high rates, focusing their campaigns on short-term or combination products.
Paid accounts play a different role here. They do not compete to be the definitive solution, but rather to capture short-term flows. Some entities continue to offer rates around 3% during the first months, but almost always with equilibrium limits or binding conditions. At best, they function as a temporary parking lot while the next move is decided. At worst, as a claim that loses its appeal once the promotional period expires.
In this context, the data begins to anticipate how 2026 might begin. The market does not expect major changes in official rates in the short term. Returns on risk-free savings move in narrow bands. And money, far from looking for a shot, seems to opt for fragmented strategies, spread across several products, with different maturities and degrees of liquidity.
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