Natalia Nunes: “Families must control money”

What will be the effect of rising interest rates on household equities?

It has positive and negative effects depending on whether the family has credit or term deposits, savings. If you have credit, you are already feeling this impact, because since February the Euribor has been rising and those who have already received the term updates have seen exactly this – and most families with rental credit have a variable rate, which means that you will always be annoyed. In terms of deposits, until now we’ve always had the idea that having term deposits has no returns, that you don’t make money, that it doesn’t yield anything at all and with this change, the remuneration of deposits has changed. .

But at the same time, we have inflation, which is at its highest point in 1993.

Yes, that “eat” that profitability is a double-edged sword.

There are those who point to the financial conservatism of the Portuguese, they save in deposits, they don’t invest. Do you still recommend deposits as the safest?

Yes, that’s the safest. And I think a lot about savings as an emergency fund or nest egg, which the family can perfectly have in these deposits, which should be mobilized even in the short term. Now, if you have more savings, more money — we know most families don’t, but the ones that do — you can and should diversify the way they use their savings. Now you need to do this in an informed manner.
And what we also see is that consumers are often – and that is not just because they are conservative, but also because of a lack of information or even less responsible advice – are led to make less responsible, less conscious investments, which ultimately leads to even arouse some distrust among consumers themselves.

How will this rate hike be reflected in the daily life of the Portuguese, in their shopping basket?

Money generally becomes more expensive. And it will also be the case for companies, which will ultimately be one of the costs of the products themselves, which will also, albeit indirectly, increase the cost of living. On the other hand, for consumers, in addition to inflation, which was already a problem, we now have the rise in Euribor and this, for those low-income or high-effort families, could become a problem.
It doesn’t mean, nor are we here with dramas saying they’re all failing. None of that. What we are saying is that families need to start controlling their money and follow the Euribor and the impact this will have on the increase in their installments and consequently on the increase in their monthly expenses and on what they can and cannot buy. It is an exercise that must be done, involving all elements of the family, to see what the family expenses are, to find out what is a less essential basic need and what they can reduce or eliminate.