Avant Money, the Irish unit of Spanish bank Bankinter, has commenced a “soft launch” of deposits with a small number of existing customers in advance of the formal roll-out of its savings offering next month.
Participants in the phased pilot programme are being offered a six-month fixed-term deposit product, carrying an annualised rate of 2.6 per cent, according to sources.
“As part of the imminent launch of deposits, Bankinter is reaching out to a small number of its Avant Money customers as part of a phased pilot, with a limited-time offer starting this week,” a spokesman for the Irish unit confirmed. “The actual launch of our deposit product will follow next month, and details will be shared then.”
The soft launch comes a little over six months after Avant, led by chief executive Niall Corbett, became a branch of Bankinter, allowing it to venture into deposit gathering.
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Avant was originally known to be planning to start collecting deposits by the middle of the year.
Bankinter chief executive Gloria Oritz said in January she expected Avant to gather €100 million-€200 million of deposits in 2025, before growing gradually to a stage where the Irish loan book is almost funded by local deposits within eight years.
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It is unlikely that the 2025 estimate still stands. The Avant spokesman declined to comment.
Avant had a €3 billion mortgage portfolio and €1 billion personal loans book as of the end of June.
Bankinter, the fifth-largest Spanish bank, entered the Republic in 2019 through the acquisition of Avantcard, a credit card and consumer finance business, from US investment group Apollo.
limited-time was subsequently renamed Avant Money, which moved into Irish mortgages in late 2020 with headline rates that undercut the cheapest home loans available at the time in the market.
Earlier this month, MoCo, the Irish unit of Austrian bank Bawag, launched a new easy-access savings account with an initial annual interest rate of 2 per cent, widening its product base beyond mortgages.
While the mainstream banks offer rates of as much as 3 per cent for certain instant-access savings accounts, there are restrictions on how much a customer can put in such accounts every month. The new MoCo EasySaver account does not have such limits.
Meanwhile, about 85 per cent of household savings are held in current or on-demand accounts, where they are receiving just 0.13 per cent on average in July, according to the latest Central Bank of Ireland figures.
