From deposits to investment: the EU plan to mobilise household wealth

Europeans are, by global standards, extraordinarily good savers, with an estimated €10 trillion sitting in bank accounts alone. The Commission is now trying to mobilise this money with its Savings and Investments Union (SIU) initiative, arguing that shifting savings into capital markets can earn citizens higher returns while helping close the funding gap in Europe’s economy identified in the Draghi and Letta reports.[1] To this end, it recommended in September 2025 that member states set up Savings and Investment Accounts (SIAs)[2]: tax-advantaged investment accounts that, alongside the Commission’s broader retail investment and financial literacy strategies, are designed to convert idle deposits into productive capital.

The ambition behind the SIA recommendation is genuinely twofold: to unlock better returns for citizens and channel additional flows into EU assets[2]. The design choices in the recommendation split along this same fault line: one side aimed at shifting Europe’s savings culture, the other at ensuring that capital raised with SIAs still finds its way to businesses across the EU[2].

On the household side, the Commission estimates that over ten years EU households can earn around €232 billion more than in the baseline scenario by shifting a meaningful share of savings out of deposits and into diversified capital-market investments through SIAs[3]. To achieve this, the Commission recommends SIAs with no minimum investment thresholds, radical simplicity in account design, favourable tax treatment and public awareness campaigns targeting non-investors, including young people[2].

On the economy side, the Commission projects that greater retail investment through SIAs can channel up to €1.2 trillion into EU assets [3], contributing to the €750-800 billion in annual investment the Draghi report deems necessary to keep pace with the US and China. To enable this, the recommendation requires non-discrimination rules so that any authorised EU provider can offer SIAs across the single market and easy cross-border portability of accounts and assets, and encourages providers to offer diversified and EU-strategic-priority investment options for those who want them[2].

Some member states are already exploring SIAs. Early movers such as Poland and Slovenia have already begun legislating, and Ireland is developing a Swedish-inspired model, which is expected in autumn 2026.[4] In doing so, governments face two challenges. First, to make SIAs accessible to a broader public: evidence from Sweden, and to some extent France, shows that take-up skews toward households with higher education levels and income. Second, to decide how far to go in determining where this capital lands. While the Commission’s assessment leans on investors’ natural home bias to organically direct new capital toward European businesses, a handful of member states have floated a ‘finance Europe’ label requiring 70% of a fund’s portfolio to be in EEA-based assets.[5]

With investors around the globe diversifying beyond US[6] and European bank accounts, which are yielding low returns, well-designed SIAs can connect Europe’s savers with investment opportunities. While industry associations generally support the idea, they emphasise a need for “attractive and simple national tax incentives,”[7] whereas consumer associations warn of poor returns and high fees.[8] Finding a balance between these two perspectives will be crucial for the success of the Savings and Investments Union. The Commission will monitor progress closely throughout the European Semester and the 2027 SIU mid-term review.

This is the third in a series of blog posts on the SIU as part of the new SIU Lab.

[1] Savings and Investments Union – Connecting savings and productive investments. https://finance.ec.europa.eu/regulation-and-supervision/savings-and-investments-union_en

[2] Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/2029 of 30 September 2025 on increasing the availability of savings and investment accounts with simplified and advantageous tax treatment https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32025H2029

[3] Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the Commission Recommendation on Increasing the Availability of Savings and Investment Accounts with Simplified and Advantageous Tax Treatment, September 2025 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52025SC6800

[4] European Movement, Just the Facts – Savings and Investment Union, May 2026 https://www.europeanmovement.ie/just-the-facts-savings-and-investment-union/

[5] Reuters, Seven EU countries to back pan-European savings product label, June 2025 https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/seven-eu-countries-back-pan-european-savings-product-label-2025-06-04/

[6] CNBC, The wealthiest investors are pulling money out of the U.S. in the ‘de-dollarization’ trade, May 2026 https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/wealthiest-investors-de-dollarization-trade.html

[7] EFAMA, July 2025 https://www.efama.org/newsroom/news/efama-urges-eu-wide-adoption-savings-and-investment-accounts-boost-retail-investment

[8] BEUC, Time to act to prevent a pensions crisis: new EU plans for consumers’ savings, September 2025 https://www.beuc.eu/press-release/time-act-prevent-pensions-crisis-new-eu-plans-consumers-savings?