Soccer fans score with account

Vienna - PSK Bank, a unit of Austrian bank BAWAG, unveiled a new savings account on Monday that aims to cash in on the European football championships being staged in Austria and Switzerland next year.

PSK launched its so-called "Fussballsparbuch" or "football savings account" and BAWAG spokesperson Thomas Heimhofer said there was already "lively" interest in the product on its first day.

The account offers savers who make a deposit of at least €1 000 a guaranteed fixed interest rate of 2.0% per annum over a period of two years.

That is much lower than the bank's normal savings accounts, which pay interest rates of 4.25-4.50% per year depending on the length of maturity.

More goals, more interest

But customers can earn additional interest - PSK puts the figure at up to 7.0% each year in total - depending on the number of goals scored during the event and on the development of the share prices of the championship's 12 main sponsors.

Italian bank UniCredit, which owns rival Austrian bank, Bank Austria, has reportedly filed a complaint with the UEFA football authorities against PSK's savings account.

But UniCredit, which is one of the main sponsors of Euro 2008, was not immediately available to explain the reasoning behind its complaint.

Banking industry sources told AFP that the Italian bank and its Austrian subsidiary may have been planning a similar product.

A basket of shares

PSK said its football savings account would track a basket of different shares to calculate the additional interest paid.

The shares included Austrian postal authority Oesterreichische Post, German sportswear maker Adidas, British oil giant BP, Japanese high-tech giant Canon, Swedish beer maker, Carlsberg, Hyundai Motor, Mastercard, McDonald's, Swisscom, Coca-Cola, UBS and UniCredit.

Depending on the average price development of the shares between December 2007 and July 2009, savers could earn up to 4.0% in additional interest on their savings account.

In concrete terms, the bonus interest rate would represent half the percentage increase in the share price over the period. So, if the price of the shares in the basket were to rise by 8.0%, savers would receive bonus interest of 4.0% per annum.

The maximum additional interest from that particular component was 4.0%.

A further 1.0% in additional interest could also be earned if at least 80 goals (excluding penalties in extra time) were scored during the championships, which are being held between June 7-29 next year, PSK said.

If neither the share basket bonus nor the goal bonus came into effect, savers would still receive guaranteed interest of 2.0% on their account.

Bank Austria launched a similar sort of product in 2004, with its so-called "EM credit" where borrowers could reduce the interest paid on their loans to just 1.0% if they bet on the correct winning team.

Bank Austria spokesperson Tiemon Kiesenhofer told AFP that the bank was not offering a similar product this time round.

But customers who took out an "artists' savings account" could win a pair of tickets to Euro 2008 football matches via a special lottery, Kiesenhofer said.

- AFP