The market shrinks, the Bausparkassen make money.
New contracts fell 19.7 percent in 2025. Savings collected in the low rate years now turn into loans at higher rates, so the market leader doubled its profit.[3][4]
Spark02 Sector reportsOctober 2026
Two countries, one pool.
Germany's hundred year old Bauspar system is shrinking and still making money. In Türkiye, the interest free version of the same idea doubled in a year. This report puts the two markets side by side, shows the gap between them and proposes two products that can be built across them.
Germany
01The short version
Same idea, two different stories. In between, a gap big enough for two products.
The interest free pool is growing fast.
High interest rates made fee based collective pools attractive. The customer count more than doubled in a year. A similar model is common in Brazil too.[18][21]
What one country lacks, the other already has.
Germany has no interest free home savings product. Türkiye has no pool for renovation and earthquake strengthening, because the law limits savings finance to buying a home, a workplace or a vehicle. Both can be solved with a model the other country already knows.[23]
Our view
Put Germany's transparent allocation system together with Türkiye's speed and interest free model, and you get products nobody offers today in either market.
Read the proposals02Through a customer's eyes
If Germany had an interest free pool, would it work for you?
We took Türkiye's savings finance model, an interest free home pool that runs on a fee, and moved it to Germany. Start with two families, then enter your own numbers.
Pick a story
Is an interest bearing loan an option for you?
The plan runs 120 months. €83,000 goes into the pool before you get the home.
Other assumptions
Selin and MuratHome €200,000, instalment €1,000 a month
+€4,786
The pool costs €4,786 less than moving in the same month and borrowing the rest from a bank.
at home, 117 months of interest free payments
SigningMonth 120, last instalment
Pool fee€16,000
Own way: savings return up to month 3−€406
Own way: interest on a €116,594 bank loan€21,191
Net cost of your own way€20,786
Difference+€4,786
This is a model. The fee, rates, return and rent are assumptions, not the terms of a real product. With "Yes", the pool is compared with someone who moves in the same month and takes a bank loan for the rest. With "No", it is compared with someone who saves on their own, interest free, and rents until they can buy. If interest free bank financing is available, the result moves towards the "Yes" path. Rising house prices are not included; waiting makes that risk bigger.
With an €80,000 down payment, the home comes in month 3.
They pay the remaining €120,000 over ten years, €1,000 a month, with no interest. If they moved in the same month and borrowed the rest from a bank, they would pay about €20,800 in net interest. The pool fee is €16,000, an advantage of about €4,800. For early receivers, the model works well.
With a €40,000 down payment, the home comes in month 72.
Over six years they pay €112,000 into the pool. Saving the same money themselves and borrowing the rest from a bank would cost them about €1,100 net; the pool costs €16,000. That is a loss of about €14,900. For a family that does not want to pay interest, the picture changes: they move into a home 88 months before their own savings would buy it in month 160.
The maths in one line
There is no interest in the pool, but the late receivers' money funds the early receivers' interest free loan.
German Bausparen balances this by paying a small rate on savings and charging interest on loans. In an interest free pool, only the fee and the order do that job. If everyone pays the same fee, a late member who could take a bank loan loses. For a member who does not want to pay interest, the pool means a home years earlier.
03The market
Fewer people sign contracts, and those who do choose bigger amounts.
13
Bausparkassen: 8 private, 5 public (LBS)[1]
€968.7bn
total target amount of all contracts[1]
€176.6bn
Bauspar deposits[1]
~€61bn
new contract volume in 2025, estimate[4]
2022 and 2023Rates went up and demand hit a record. Customers signed contracts to lock in a low loan rate.
2024About 1.3 million new contracts and €78.1bn. Down 13.2 percent in number and 21.1 percent in amount.[3]
20251.12 million new contracts. Down 19.7 percent in number and 25.9 percent in amount applied for.[3]
MeanwhileDemand for Bauspar loans went up. Schwäbisch Hall raised its pre tax profit from €64m to €122m.[4]
04How the model works
The customer is buying a loan rate locked in for the future. The savings return is not the point.
The system is a closed pool. Savers' money funds the borrowers.
- Step 1Signing
The customer picks a target amount. The loan rate is fixed that day. A contract fee of 1 to 1.6 percent of the target is charged.
- Step 2Saving
The customer pays in regularly and earns a low rate. The state premium and employer savings contributions can go in here.
- Step 3Score
A score rises with how much and how long the customer saves. Extra payments speed it up.
- Step 4Allocation
Usually once 40 to 50 percent of the target is saved and the score and waiting time are reached, the right to the loan comes, depending on cash in the pool.
- Step 5Loan
The savings are paid out, plus a loan for the rest at the rate fixed on signing day.
How the order is set
Germany: score
A score that runs for the whole contract. The customer can see how much each step brings the allocation forward.
Türkiye: plan and draw
A bigger down payment can bring delivery forward, but that is fixed at signing. After that, a draw or the payment order decides.
Where the Bausparkasse earns
Contract feeCharged up front and kept even if the loan is never used. Sales commissions are paid from it.
Interest marginA low rate on savings, a higher rate on loans. Both fixed from the start.
Account feeSmall per contract, large across millions of contracts.
Unused rightsSavers who never take the loan give the Bausparkasse cheap funding for years.
Other loansBridge loans and regular mortgages, at higher rates.
The model depends on the rate cycle.
When rates are at the bottom, loan demand disappears while the Bausparkasse keeps paying old savings rates. In the 2010s this is why they cancelled old high rate contracts.
It exists, but it is small.
10 percent of yearly savings, up to €70 (€140 for married couples). Income limit €35,000 for singles, €70,000 for couples.[13]
No limit per person.
One person can hold several contracts and split a large amount across different allocation dates. In Türkiye, the limit is one vehicle and one home contract per company.[20]
05Consumers
Germans trust the product, but they have less money left to save.
06Players and channels
The market belongs to whoever owns the branch network.
The product is mostly sold in bank branches, next to a mortgage or salary account conversation. Digital sales are a small share.
Schwäbisch Hall 33.3%
LBS ~35%
Others ~32%
Share of new business, as stated by the companies. They may measure it differently.[4][6]
Schwäbisch Hall
Cooperative banks (DZ Bank)
ChannelAlmost every Volksbank and Raiffeisenbank branch, about 3,000 field staff[5]
Note2025 new business €20.5bn, about 6 million customers[5]
Landesbausparkassen
Sparkassen group
ChannelSparkasse branches
Note5 institutions, €12.6bn paid out in 2025[6]
Wüstenrot
W&W
ChannelOwn field staff, brokers and corporate partners
NoteThe oldest Bausparkasse (1924), 2024 gross new business about €11bn[9][10]
BHW
Deutsche Bank
ChannelDeutsche Bank and Postbank branches, financial advisers
Note2.2 million contracts, 2025 new business €4.5bn[7]
Badenia, Debeka, BKM
Insurers and independent groups
ChannelInsurance field staff, independent brokers
NoteBadenia 2025 new business €2.7bn[8]
07Renovation and vehicles
Renovation is the strongest reason to sign, but it is stuck. Vehicles are out of the picture.
Renovation
For every 100 home renovations needed, only 57 were done.
2022 rate
0.88%
2025 rate
0.67%
Target rate
~2%
In 2025, 460,000 homes needed renovating and 260,000 were done. Unrenovated buildings can sell at up to 40 percent less.[14]
Bausparkassen have an edge here: they can offer renovation loans of up to 20 years. Schwäbisch Hall puts the yearly need for energy renovation at €80bn.[15][5]
Vehicles
You cannot buy a car with Bauspar. The law ties the loan to housing.
Banks, carmakers' own banks and leasing companies finance vehicles. About half of new cars and a third of used cars are bought on loan or lease.[17]
Carmakers can offer very low rates in campaigns, so there is no gap for an interest free car pool. In Türkiye, high rates made savings finance the main channel for vehicles.
08Germany and Türkiye
The same thing drives demand. Who carries the risk is what changes.
High market rates make both models attractive. In Germany the customer pays interest, but the rate is fixed years ahead and the Bausparkasse carries the risk. In Türkiye the customer pays a fee, and the cost of waiting stays with the customer.
| Measure | Germany | Türkiye |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | Savings plus a fixed rate loan | Interest free pool, organisation fee |
| Scope | Buying, building, maintaining and improving homes[24] | Only buying a home, a covered workplace or a vehicle; renovation is excluded[23] |
| Order | Allocation by savings score | Draw, payment order or a plan set by the down payment |
| Contracts per person | No limit | Up to 1 vehicle and 1 home per company[20] |
| Scale | 20.1 million contracts, €968.7bn in stock[1] | 1.34 million customers, total assets TRY 379bn[18] |
| Yearly volume | About €61bn in new contracts (2025)[4] | TRY 1.21 trillion in transactions (2025)[18] |
| Direction | Shrinking | Customer count up 112 percent[18] |
| Main use | Housing, renovation and down payments | Mostly vehicles, a share above 60 percent[19] |
| Regulator | BaFin, Bausparkassengesetz | BDDK, Law No. 6361 |
| State support | Yes, small | None |
| Amount limits | None | TRY 6.25m for vehicles, TRY 62.5m for homes[20] |
Türkiye figures are in Turkish lira, not converted.
09What each can learn
Each country needs something the other already knows.
What Türkiye can take from Germany
In Türkiye, money already affects the order, but it is fixed at signing. A score that runs through the contract can tell the customer "pay extra and your home comes this many months sooner". That rewards extra saving and reduces the uncertainty of the draw.
What Germany can take from Türkiye
Germany has customers who avoid interest and fit no Bauspar product. As far as we know there is no interest free collective home savings product, and interest free home finance is offered by only a few banks.
10Two product proposals
Closing one country's gap with what the other knows.
An urban renewal and strengthening pool
Today the law limits savings finance to buying a home, a covered workplace or a vehicle; renovation and strengthening are excluded. The proposal has two stages: start now with urban renewal and a participation bank partnership, then widen the scope along the lines of the German model. [23][24]
Who forFamilies who own a home but lack the savings to strengthen or insulate it, and building managements.
NowFinance the new home in a building that is torn down and rebuilt, and offer strengthening and insulation together with a participation bank. Whether the extra payment in a renewal project is covered needs a legal opinion and a BDDK view first.
NextAdd strengthening and energy efficiency to the acquisition definition in Law No. 6361, with a separate amount cap, direct payment to the contractor, and proof by invoice and building inspection report.
Taken from GermanyThe Bauspar law definition that covers maintenance and improvement, long terms built for renovation, and a transparent score.
A fairly priced interest free home pool
A design that brings the Turkish model to Germany and makes the late member's loss smaller. The audience: families who avoid interest and sit outside Bauspar today.
DesignA fee that depends on delivery time, sharing the interest free return on waiting money with late members, and a transparent score in place of a draw.
Taken from TürkiyeFast digital sign up, simple product language and the interest free structure.
First stepRegulatory work on which licence it can run under, and a distribution partnership with a bank.
The bridge
Both products need the same thing: knowing both markets and interest free finance together.
- For a savings finance company in Türkiye, urban renewal is growth it can start on now, and strengthening is growth a change in the law would open.
- For a bank or Bausparkasse in Germany, an interest free pool opens a group of customers it cannot reach today.
- For a Turkish company expanding to Germany, the gap in this report is a ready starting point.
11Our view
Classic Bauspar will not grow. Growth sits with whoever combines the two countries' models.
In Germany, Bausparkassen try to grow through mortgages, renovation finance and platform services instead of new contracts. Vehicles are outside the model. The model travels to other countries only with three things: long term trust, a steady flow of new savings and stable rules. When Hungary ended state support in 2018, its market shrank.[22]
Growth in Türkiye depends on high rates. Where demand goes when rates fall is this market's main question. Products tied to a need that does not depend on rates, like renovation, are less exposed to it, but first the law's scope has to widen.
Expert note
Millions of families in Türkiye want to strengthen their homes, and today the law does not allow a pool for it. In Germany, the same model has financed renovation for a hundred years. I see a serious opportunity here.
I have built two banks in Germany and launched banking and fintech products in Türkiye. I know both markets from the inside, and when I look at them closely I see the same thing: a problem one country has solved is still open in the other. Bauspar's transparent score answers the uncertainty of Türkiye's draw. Türkiye's speed and interest free model answer a German product that cannot leave the branch.
Mehmet Burak Dikmen, fspark9
Next step
Two markets, two gaps. Let's build the first product together.
fspark9 works with banks and fintechs on product, partner and market entry decisions between Türkiye and Germany.
Sources
Where every figure comes from.
- [1]Deutsche Bundesbank, Bankenstatistiken, Bausparkassen, September 2026. www.bundesbank.de
- [2]Deutsche Bundesbank, Bankenstatistiken, Bausparkassen series 2019 to 2023. bundesbank.de
- [3]Verband der Privaten Bausparkassen, Bauspar new business data 2024 and 2025.
- [4]Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall, 2025 results release, February 2026. bankinformation.de
- [5]Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall, investor presentation, August 2026. www.schwaebisch-hall.de
- [6]DSGV, Bilanzzahlen 2025 der Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe.
- [7]BHW Bausparkasse, Geschäftsbericht 2025. www.bhw.de
- [8]Deutsche Bausparkasse Badenia, Geschäftsbericht 2025.
- [9]Versicherungsbote, Bausparkassen product quality study, 2025. www.versicherungsbote.de
- [10]W&W, 100 Jahre Wüstenrot Bausparkasse, 2024.
- [11]Verband der Privaten Bausparkassen and Kantar, savings survey, spring 2026.
- [12]YouGov Deutschland, Bausparer audience analysis.
- [13]Wohnungsbau-Prämiengesetz, 2026 terms.
- [14]BuVEG, Sanierungsquote 2025. buveg.de
- [15]WirtschaftsWoche, financing modernisation with Bausparkassen, 2026. www.wiwo.de
- [16]Bankenfachverband, Kreditbanken first half 2026, autohaus.de. www.autohaus.de
- [17]Bankenfachverband, share of private cars financed by loan or lease, 2023. de.statista.com
- [18]Finansal Kurumlar Birliği data, Hürriyet, 2026.
- [19]Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye data, March 2026.
- [20]BDDK, savings finance regulation, August 2026.
- [21]ABAC, Consórcio de imóveis 2025. blog.abac.org.br
- [22]bne IntelliNews and 444.hu, Hungary ends Bauspar subsidy, October 2018.
- [23]Law No. 6361, savings finance provisions added by Law No. 7292 (Art. 3 and 39/A), 2021. www.alomaliye.com
- [24]Gesetz über Bausparkassen (BauSparkG), § 1. gesetze.legal
Data checked on 5 October 2026. Figures marked "about" or "estimate" are calculated from source data. The simulator and stories in section 2 are a model based on assumptions.