Akis Skertsos, Greece's Minister of State, said in a post that natural persons' bank deposits rose from 106.4 billion euros in December 2018 to 148.7 billion euros in December 2025, an increase of 42.4 billion euros, or 39.8%.
Skertsos said there is a major difference between saying 7 in 10 depositors have deposits under 1,000 euros and saying 7 in 10 bank accounts have a balance under 1,000 euros, since the first refers to people while the second refers to bank accounts. He said news coverage and opposition commentary often confuse the two and present the first as fact when the data does not support it.
How the statistics can mislead
Skertsos said data from Greece's Deposit and Investment Guarantee Fund (TEKE) records depositors per bank rather than unique individuals, so a person with accounts at three different banks is counted three times, and each joint account holder is also counted separately. He said this is why official figures show 31.7 million eligible depositors at the end of 2025, roughly three times Greece's population of about 10.5 million.
He gave an example of a person with three accounts holding 500 euros, 800 euros and 50,000 euros respectively. Two of the three accounts fall under 1,000 euros, he said, but that does not mean two in three Greeks have under 1,000 euros. Instead, he said, there is one person with total deposits of 51,300 euros. He said TEKE and the Bank of Greece do not, for technical supervisory reasons, allow totals to be calculated per individual.
Growth across deposit brackets
Skertsos said the increase in deposits is not limited to very large balances. He said the 5,000-50,000 euro bracket grew by 16.0 billion euros and the 50,000-100,000 euro bracket grew by 7.9 billion euros, together accounting for nearly 24 billion euros of the increase between 2018 and 2025.
He said conservative calculations based on TEKE and Bank of Greece data indicate at least about 4 million individuals hold accounts with balances between 5,000 and 50,000 euros, while at least about half a million individuals hold accounts with balances above 100,000 euros.
Skertsos concluded that the conclusion that 7 in 10 Greeks have deposits under 1,000 euros cannot be drawn from the data, and said public discussion of Greeks' financial situation should rely on responsible, evidence-based reading of the figures, since bank accounts and people are not the same thing.
