EU Deposit Guarantee Scheme (DGS) funds to protect depositors against bank failures have exceeded €79bn. All national DGSs in the EU have reached the envisaged minimum target level.

The funds have been built up over a 10-year period through contributions from credit institutions and are directly available to reimburse depositors in the case of a bank failure. The amount of deposits protected by the DGSs increased by 3.2% to €8.6tn from 2023 to 2024.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) today published end-2024 data related to two key concepts and indicators in the Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive (DGSD), namely financial means available to, and covered deposits protected by, national deposit guarantee schemes. The EBA publishes this data for each Member State, and on a yearly basis to enhance the transparency and public accountability of DGSs across the EU to the benefit of depositors, markets, policymakers, DGSs and Members States. Following a 10-year build-up phase, „the EU DGS funds have reached €79bn of available means in aggregate” – according to the press release.

The DGSD ensures the adequate protection of depositors when banks fail, by guaranteeing that deposits up to a certain level will always be repaid even if the bank holding them fails. Covered deposits are guaranteed up to €100,000 or the equivalent in other currencies per depositor at each bank. The data as of 31 December 2024 shows that, compared to 2023, the amount of covered deposits across the EU further increased by 3.2% to €8.6tn, after increases of 1.7% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2022.

Furthermore, all banks in the EU have been obliged to contribute to funds held by the DGSs in their jurisdiction for the main purpose of reimbursing depositors within seven days after a bank failure. The deadline for those funds to reach the minimum required target level of usually 0.8% of covered deposits for the first time was 3 July 2024.

The end-2024 data shows that all 33 EU DGSs are at or above that target level. In total, funds available to protect deposits in case of bank failures rose by 11.1% to €79bn in 2024. DGSs have in place additional arrangements, to require credit institutions to make additional contributions to the fund and/or to make additional short-term funding available should the need arise.

The public data includes data for the EU countries, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, which together form the European Economic Area (EEA). The total covered deposits in the EEA amount to €8.8tn and the total available financial means in the EEA funds amount to €81bn at the end of2024.

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Documents

Aggregated DGSD data 2015-2024 (1.76 MB – Excel Spreadsheet) Download

Related content

Page – Deposit Guarantee Schemes data

Topic – Depositor protection