UniCredit takes over Commerzbank, while current accounts get a fifth of the ECB's rate rise
15 October 2026, 19:23
On 14 October Bettina Orlopp, chief executive of Commerzbank, told Bloomberg that the ECB's approval for UniCredit to take control of her bank will come "in the coming days or weeks". The Italian group led by Andrea Orcel already holds just under half the shares of Germany's second-largest bank. It is not short of money: in the first half of 2026 UniCredit earned €6.1 billion, the best result in its history, and it has announced an interim dividend for shareholders in November.
UniCredit has never earned so much. And people who keep their money in a current account, at UniCredit as at other banks, what have they had out of this year?
In 2026 the ECB raised rates twice, in June and in September, to rein in inflation. The rate the ECB pays banks on the money they leave on deposit with it has risen by half a point, in two steps of a quarter.
The answer lies in the figures of ABI, the Italian Banking Association. In January a current account paid 0.27% on average; in August, after the first rise, 0.32%. The ECB had added a quarter of a point, current accounts 0.05 points: a fifth. On loans, over the same period, the average rate rose by more than two tenths of a point, almost as much as the ECB.
What does it cost the reader? According to Bank of Italy data processed by the consumer association Adusbef, at the end of May Italian households held €1,163 billion in current accounts. On that sum, the four fifths of the rise that never arrived come to about €2.3 billion of interest a year: households do not receive it, and banks do not pay it. And in September the ECB added another quarter of a point: ABI's figures since that rise have not yet been published.
No rule obliges banks to make current accounts follow the ECB's rates: each bank decides for itself. There is a lever, though, and it lies with the account holder. Legislative Decree 37 of 2017, which transposes an EU directive, makes moving an account to another bank free of charge and sets twelve working days as the time to complete the switch. On fixed-term deposits, which cannot be withdrawn before they mature, the rise did arrive, and more besides: according to ABI, those opened in January paid 2.04% on average, those opened in August 2.40%.
So the question, for Andrea Orcel: by how much has UniCredit raised the rate on its Italian customers' current accounts this year, and by how much the rate it charges those who borrow?
On loans the ECB's rise has arrived almost in full, on current accounts by a fifth.
This article was prompted by a news item published in Bloomberg on 14 October 2026.