How savers fared: strategies and outcomes across the Eurozone

Allianz SE | Munich | Apr 11, 2024

European savers have emerged from the crises of the last two decades in surprisingly good shape, almost doubling their financial assets. Germans, known for their risk aversion, have claimed the title of ‘savings champions’ by buttressing their financial security through sheer saving diligence. Those in Finland and the Netherlands reaped greater gains by embracing market volatility.

By Kathrin Stoffel
Economist Insurance & Wealth

Arne Holzhausen
Head of Insurance, Wealth and Trend Research

A new report from Allianz Research compares the saving strategies of households across countries and generations in the eurozone to see how savers fared. This was during a tumultuous period that included the global financial crisis and the euro crisis, which resulted in an era of zero or even negative interest rates. Following that came the coronavirus pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Focusing on nine countries, the report uses implicit return on savings to illustrate the stark contrasts in investment outcomes. Germany's conservative approach yielded a nominal return of 2.1%, the lowest in the analysis, while the more adventurous strategies of the Netherlands and Finland returned more than 4%. France returned 3.3%, suggesting that a middle, more secure path still leads to respectable growth.

The generational analysis reveals a grim outlook for Millennials, who, unlike previous generations, have faced a severe onslaught on their assets just as they began their wealth accumulation journey. In contrast, Baby Boomers sit atop the wealth pyramid, having capitalized on the booming markets of the past. But not all is lost for the youngest generation. Against the backdrop of the end of the savings glut and the rising demand for capital driving the green and digital transformation, Gen Z savers have a good chance to outperform all their predecessors – if they align their savings behavior to the new realities, i.e. increase their savings rate and lean more on capital markets.

Download the report “The best is yet to come: A comparison of savings across countries and generations in the eurozone”.

About Allianz

The Allianz Group is one of the world’s leading insurers and asset managers, active in almost 70 countries and serving around 97 million private and corporate customers*. Allianz customers benefit from a broad range of personal and corporate insurance services, ranging from property, life and health insurance to assistance services to credit insurance and global business insurance. Allianz is one of the world’s largest investors, managing around 764 billion euros** on behalf of its insurance customers. Furthermore, our asset managers PIMCO and Allianz Global Investors manage about 2.0 trillion euros** of third-party assets. Thanks to our systematic integration of ecological and social criteria in our business processes and investment decisions, we are among the leaders in the insurance industry in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. In 2025, over 156,000 employees achieved total business volume of 186.9 billion euros and an operating profit of 17.4 billion euros for the Group.

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** As of December 31, 2025.