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Savings inequality/BIRN: The average Albanian has 3 thousand euros in the bank, the rich, 59 thousand

Politiko 2025-06-23 16:02:56

Savings inequality/BIRN: The average Albanian has 3 thousand euros in the bank,

There are about 1.84 million active bank deposits in Albania, but about 93% of them appear to belong to ordinary citizens and have an average balance of 312 thousand lek or 3,100 euros at the current exchange rate, while about 7% of deposits or 126 thousand accounts have an average balance of 5.9 million lek each or 59,000 euros.

The data stated in the annual report of the Deposit Insurance Agency, which was deposited and published by the Albanian Parliament, show that the 7 percent of the wealthy deposits contain 7.4 billion euros or 58% of all individual deposits in the banking system, while the other 93 percent of deposits contain 42% of total savings or 5.34 billion euros.

The Deposit Insurance Agency is a public agency that is tasked with collecting a periodic annual contribution from banks to guarantee that, in the event of any of them going bankrupt, it will pay citizens' deposits. The agency guarantees 100% of deposits up to 2.5 million lek, while deposits above this value are guaranteed at a lower percentage.

Consequently, the agency keeps deposit accounts divided into deposits up to 2.5 million lek and deposits over 2.5 million, in order to calculate in this way the total of 100% guaranteed deposits and the amount above these deposits guaranteed at a lower percentage.

Incidentally, the administrative division provides statistical data on the number of deposits containing amounts of money over 2.5 million lekë and which are assumed to belong to the rich, as well as other deposits. This is no longer an accurate measure of the inequality between the rich and the poor of the country, but it is quite informative to see how much money is in the hands of the rich and how much in the hands of the rest.

According to 2024 data, there were 1.84 million active bank accounts in Albania with a total deposit of 127 billion lek or approximately 13 billion euros. The number of bank accounts is not equal to “individuals” as an individual can have more than one bank account so, most likely, the number of individuals with accounts over 2.5 million lek is lower than 126 thousand.

Albania does not have a statistical system designed to measure inequality in the various aspects of this phenomenon, from income inequality to asset inequality or consumption. Indirect data is obtained from information such as this on deposits, and is obtained incidentally. Regarding property, Albania does not produce statistics to see how many citizens own property and what is the value of the property owned by them and what is the degree of inequality. / BIRN