Survey: Savings inertia, misjudging inflation-adjusted returns among barriers to wealth growth in Romania

The useful part

The research revealed that for a Romanian household with EUR 10,000 in savings, inflation erodes EUR 680 in purchasing power annually. Romania holds RON 200.7 billion (EUR 38.2 billion) in passive bank savings. Investing this cash into diversified capital markets would inject RON 5.1 billion (EUR 1 billion) in annual growth capital into the economy, the authors of the survey argue.

How it works

• For 50.2% of multi-app users, this fragmentation hinders investing: 31.3% lack a clear ov...
• A combination of misjudging inflation-adjusted returns, not switching banks for better returns, and using multiple financial apps, which hinders investing, are the main hurdles identified by the survey...
• Key reasons include preferring to keep all money at one bank (24.3%), perceiving the rate difference as too small (19.0%), finding switching takes too much effort (15.5%), or not knowing where to look (12.4%).

What to take from it

By keeping excess capital idle in bank accounts rather than investing, households miss out on an average of approximately RON 1,345 (EUR 256) in potential returns per RON 53,000 (EUR 10,000) each year, according to Revolut's European Wealth Drain Index.

Details worth keeping

Over 38% of Romanian respondents misjudge their inflation-adjusted returns or lack awareness: 14.8% mistakenly believe their savings rate exceeds inflation (despite Romania's 8.03% inflation rate exceeding deposit rates), 13.2% are unaware or don't know, and 10.0% think they are exactly equal. Over 44% of Romanian respondents (44.1%) use multiple financial apps.