The role of deposit guarantees in increasing savings for retirement — an analysis of individual pension products offered by banks
The role of deposit guarantees in increasing savings for retirement — an analysis of individual pension products offered by banks

Summary/Abstract: Retirement saving requires patience and a long horizon. It is therefore important to provide a sense of security to those who decide to make voluntary additional savings. Individual Retirement Accounts (IKE) and Individual Retirement Security Accounts (IKZE), which are offered by the banks, can be considered the most conservative, highly regulated products for saving for retirement. They all have variable interest rates, which in nominal terms will always be positive. In addition, important from the point of view of the saver is the very low level of risk. It is therefore a very good solution for those wishing to invest funds for old age safely. It is worth remembering that these savings are guaranteed by the Bank Guarantee Fund (BFG), up to the equivalent of €100 000 along with other funds in the same bank. As the limit on IKE and IKZE contributions increases yearly, the author believes that the level of guarantees for banks' IKE and IKZE should be increased. The article aims to show that higher deposit guarantees for IKE and IKZE offered by banks can contribute to greater savings for retirement. The existing incentives are not effective, as indicated by the relatively small number of IKEs and IKZEs in total, and the fact that not all of them are deposited per year. Studies have shown that contributions to bank IKEs and IKZEs are higher than to IKEs and IKZEs in general. For bank IKE in particular, it was observed that they were more systematic. The sum of average payments to both bank products without taking into account the account interest rates between 2005 and 2023 was more than PLN 120,000. Therefore, it can be concluded that payments alone would have used up almost 30% of the declared deposit guarantee if one had both IKE and IKZE at the same bank.

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