Breaking with tradition

Due to fall vacation: Bank breaks with tradition

Sparkasse Oberösterreich is moving World Savings Day forward.(Bild: Evelyn Hronek)

During the coronavirus pandemic, banks started to extend the activities surrounding World Savings Day to several days and weeks in order to better distribute customer flows. Now one financial institution is making a clean break: After more than 100 years of celebrating World Savings Day on October 31, Sparkasse Oberösterreich is moving it forward.

It is the national holiday that many people associate with formative memories from their childhood - when they went to the bank with their piggy bank on World Savings Day, October 31, had it emptied and the savings were paid into their savings account.

The pandemic changed many things
In recent years, however, World Savings Day has lost a little of its luster: firstly, low interest rates on savings became a mood killer, and then, in times of the pandemic, visiting a bank branch became less important due to advances in online banking.

We want to enable our customers and colleagues to spend the fall vacations with their families.

Stefanie Christina Huber, Generaldirektorin der Sparkasse OÖ

With the introduction of the autumn vacations, it became even more difficult: many families use this time for a vacation and travel. Sparkasse Oberösterreich has now responded to this by bringing World Savings Day forward to October 24.

World Savings Day has been celebrated on October 31 for more than 100 years
A break with a tradition that has been practiced for more than 100 years. "Even with the new date, the primary goal remains to make financial knowledge accessible to families," emphasizes Stefanie Christina Huber, CEO of Sparkasse Oberösterreich.