And exactly one month later, an announcement came about the next interest rate reduction: from 2.5% to 2.25% effective August 5, 2025.
1 Like
Which savings accounts deduct tax from interest without requiring self-reporting to the tax authorities?
3.7.2025
In Taloustaito’s comparison, interest rates offered by banks for 6, 12, and 24-month deposits, when depositing a sum of 10,000 euros.
In recent offers, the best annual interest rate of 3.00% is available for 6 and 12-month fixed-term deposits at one of the banks in the comparison. Two banks offer a 3% interest rate for a 24-month deposit. Other offers are below three percent.
This calculation has taken into account, in addition to inflation, the withholding tax levied on deposit interest. When these are taken into account, the required annual return for the deposit is now 0.71 percent.
Inflation, or the annual change in consumer prices, was 0.50 percent in May.
The banks are listed in the table in order of the best annual interest rate (12 months).
5 Likes
This Sweepbank/Ferratum bank is peculiar. I transferred 100,000 euros there in June, and now they are demanding an explanation of where the money came from. Well, from salary income, of course, what else, but I’ll have to send quite a few bank statements if they want to see from what period those came.
Other banks haven’t asked anything about the funds. Even though I’ve transferred as much as 200,000 euros.
By the way, it’s worth routing the funds through one account. I gave the bank statement to AI, and it drafted a proper response to the bank. Let’s see if it goes through. Fortunately, it’s not like this with other banks. Below is the response drafted by the AI. I transferred in 5,000 euro increments so it would go as an instant transfer, and I wouldn’t have to wait days for the funds to be credited.
Hello,
Here is an explanation regarding the transfers made from my account in June, totaling 79,000 €:
1. Source of Funds
All transferred funds were my own savings, which I had previously deposited into the following accounts:
- Collector Säästötili / Nordax: several transfers 11.–26.6.2025 (e.g., 70,122.50 €, 20,000 € × 3)
- The bank statement clearly shows the origin of the transfers: the message shows, for example, “Collector Spara”, “transfer from a matured account”
2. Justification for the Transaction
Deposits to Ferratum were made in 5,000 € increments due to either:
- transfer limits of the receiving bank, or
- my own risk management decision to diversify the transfers into several installments
Attached is the bank statement, from which the transfers and the origin of the funds can be seen.
1 Like
Yes, these days, inquiries about larger transfers come regardless of the bank. Ferratum/Sweep inquiries do not differ from normal in any way. I myself have received inquiries from, for example, OP, Nordnet, Mandatum, S-Pankki, etc. Current anti-money laundering laws require banks to clarify matters more thoroughly than before. Usually, I have received one clarification request per bank, but from OP, I already received a second one earlier in the spring when I repatriated funds from abroad (IBKR). Completely understandable. I have personally submitted a tax return from a better stock market year showing larger incomes, or a 9A report, which have been accepted directly without more detailed verbal explanations. I have no experience with what kind of clarifications should be made for salary income saved over the years.
9 Likes
I guess I’ll have to submit tax decisions from the last 15 years, and from those, it’s clear that the salary income level has been over 100,000 euros for at least that period, but if I have to start explaining expenses, it’ll be a rather long stack of bank statements 
I hope I don’t have to start sending bank statements for those, do I? It doesn’t even reveal the origin of the money, only that a large sum was transferred from some bank A to bank B, but where did the money originally come from to bank B? I certainly wouldn’t start sending anything that takes more than 15 minutes of my time, especially not for a 3% interest rate. I might just manage to send the latest bank statement or tax decision if they specifically demand it. The origins of funds are always asked nowadays when creating an account, like how much one intends to transfer and how often; there, the origins of the money have already been clarified at a sufficiently adequate level.
If I remember correctly, Svea has specifically asked me for a clarification regarding a one-time transfer in the magnitude of approximately 50,000 - 70,000 euros. I recall that for the clarification back then, it was enough that I stated they were salary income, savings from over the years, and investment returns, and I didn’t send any bank statements, because you can’t reasonably prove those origins all the way back to the very beginning.
5 Likes
Well, I’ll report how that ends and if the answer I drafted with AI is acceptable. If it’s not accepted, I’ll move my money elsewhere if it gets too difficult. Banks haven’t asked for this before. One would think that if they are from OP, the first bank has already done the checks. Below is Sweepback’s original email
I hope this message finds you well.
As a responsible financial institution, we are committed to complying with regulatory requirements and ensuring the ongoing security of our customers’ accounts. For this reason, we kindly request that you provide us with additional information regarding transfers made from your account in June, totaling 79,000 euros.
To proceed with our review, we would appreciate it if you could kindly provide the following information:
- Source of Funds (SoF) – Please provide supporting documents (e.g., bank statements, payslips, contracts, or other relevant documents) that clearly explain the origin of the transferred funds.
- Transaction Justification – Please clarify the reason why the amount was transferred in multiple installments, each of 5,000 euros, instead of as a single transfer.
We appreciate your cooperation and understanding. Please let us know if you require any assistance or clarification in compiling the requested documents.
Sincerely,
Customer Service
2 Likes
As stated, quite normal according to current regulations and won’t improve by changing banks. A Finnish brick-and-mortar bank just recently inquired about the origin of a transfer of just over 10,000 euros from me. Fortunately, that was a two-minute job to answer.
2 Likes
I also had to send income data for pretty much the entire last decade to Collector recently. It was a bit strange that the request for clarification came from “Walley” (whatever that is in Norion Bank’s portfolio) via email (verified by Gmail), through which the whole process was handled. And not through forms on their own website.
I had already managed to submit 2-3 different documents before sending the entire employment pension register reportedly stopped the requests for now, even though no confirmation was received.
Of course, it’s not pleasant to provide background on one’s entire life’s savings, when very few places still have even over five years of electronic archives.
2 Likes
Similarly, I received a demand from Collector to send income information. They wanted a copy of last year’s tax assessment decision. I haven’t sent it anywhere else, solely due to data security reasons, so I didn’t send it to them either. Instead, I transferred the funds elsewhere and closed the account…
6 Likes
Ferratum likely doesn’t have a transfer limit of a maximum of €5000 per transfer, and in my opinion, it’s completely understandable that in the bank’s eyes, it’s suspicious for several smaller transfers to come consecutively from the same account. In the bank’s eyes, it might look like a way to avoid a clarification request (the sum would remain below the assumed clarification threshold).
If (or when) the justification was that the money transfers faster, it is considerably more credible than some vague “risk management reasons” or “receiving bank’s transfer limits,” which don’t even factually exist.
5 Likes
I wonder if the situation has somehow tightened regarding these inquiries, as I myself transferred 100k€ to Norwegian Bank a couple of years ago. However, in addition to interest income, there has been complete radio silence towards me.
1 Like
The overnight interest rate is 1.924%.
The easiest way to access this is through a money market ETF if you have a cheap broker (Degiro or IBRK), then it’s a maximum of 3€ per even larger transaction. The spread is moderate in larger ETFs. It’s accumulating, meaning its value grows. My own money is there and it’s practically like a savings account.
3 Likes
At Bank Norwegian, Svea, or Instabank, documents were practically never asked for; a mere self-declaration was sufficient.
The data from the pension register (Työeläkerekisteri) is actually quite conveniently compiled, so it’s probably the best way to send sources of one’s savings if they have been declared as accumulated over several years. The pension register (Työeläkerekisteri) does not contain, for example, a personal identity code.
Of course, it would be better if those inquiries came directly on the bank’s own platform behind a login, but as long as Collector is practically the only somewhat credible option (with Malta’s deposit guarantee, which sounds like a considerably more uncertain contractual culture, Ferratum also seems to offer similar savings interest rates), there isn’t much room to shop around for one’s banking relationship, even if the IT side were implemented with the sender bearing the blue Gmail verification badge of the same corporate group’s Walley’s Swedish domain.
But I wouldn’t be too pessimistic about that implementation, because if we take the book publishing side of one of the world’s largest companies, Amazon, for comparison, even there a fully conscious cultural decision has been made to freeze product development to a 2003 implementation, even though modernizing the development of user-friendliness for a self-costing billion-dollar business would probably pay back the entire investment in a minute and add significantly to overall sales, with books having professional covers and layouts almost automatically.
Even modern website forms often still travel via email, so it’s not surprising in itself if they want to save costs there. Especially if the entire group has combined customer service but separate operations. Gmail verified it, and I, at least, wasn’t asked to send documents that one wouldn’t dare to send, so why not.
Of course, the first reaction is that it would again be an unreasonable witch hunt directed at oneself to ask for data from the last decade, when one already has to ponder where to find them, but with fairly moderate documentation, that was also resolved quite quickly, thanks to the electronic pension register (Työeläkerekisteri).
More so, when operating in this style, one had to check and confirm where and what one was sending, as one wouldn’t believe that someone would directly ask to send these certificates via email, so let’s not underestimate Swedish wisdom in this either.
3 Likes
Hey, Collector probably has the best savings account interest offer right now, but it’s strange that they’re asking for very specific personal information via email!? E.g., "a copy of your latest tax return, payslip, bank statement, .. " And the threat is: "If we do not receive the necessary information to achieve sufficient customer knowledge, we may have to limit your ability to use your account(s) or terminate your customer relationship in accordance with our general terms and conditions. " I know that banks have statutory obligations to know their customers, but still .. Does anyone have comments on this? The request came several weeks after the account had already been successfully opened.
Well, yes. I had (that is, had…) a 100k€ savings account with Collector. It had only been there for a couple of months when a similar inquiry came. I’m certainly not going to start sending tax return and bank statement information to some foreign bank. It didn’t take long to decide to withdraw the funds and close the account. Now, over half of them are in Mandatum’s AOT (securities account) account, in carefully selected stocks, and the rest in OP’s savings account…
6 Likes
For clarity, Collector’s first standard message is approximately as follows:
"Hello,
As a bank, we have a duty to keep up-to-date and sufficient information about you as a customer. To ensure that your information is accurate and so that we can continue to offer you our services, we ask you to answer the following questions and provide the requested documents:
Income: Please state the origin of the funds you save with us. Provide us with a copy of your latest tax return, payslip, bank statement, sales agreement, or a similar document. Attach this document to your reply.
Business interests: If you have business interests, please send us documentation of them and attach them to your reply."
There is also the word “or” in there.
It continued with the following additional queries:
"Thank you for your reply.
Please include a document showing your income. This is not evident from the attached bank statement."
…
"Thank you for your reply.
“Please include a payslip showing that the saved money originates from the salary/pension you declared in KYC.”
So, it became clear with three messages and the queries stopped when an occupational pension statement, which comprehensively contains all income information, was sent. It was not about pension income at all; this too was just a standard message.
Collector thus sent a total of four standard message templates, so it is unlikely that they are taking any unprecedented actions in your specific case, if you just dare to send some more comprehensive documentation, such as an occupational pension register, income register, or tax return. You probably don’t need to send all of them, unless you have been fabricating answers to the original question about the origin of funds.
2 Likes
I can at least comment that they harassed me in the same way. I sent a receipt for a matured Bigbank fixed-term deposit. Hopefully, that was enough so I don’t have to start looking for a new deposit bank again.
1 Like
Has anyone managed to negotiate a savings account from Nordea with different terms than those on their website? For example, 1-month or 3-month Euribor minus a margin. Amount +200k