Quiz: Can You Guess What Your Bank Costs You per Year?

What the research actually says

The numbers below come from named public sources, not from guesses.

• Germany: in its 2025 current account comparison, the consumer organisation Stiftung Warentest found that account holders pay on average about 127 euros per year for typical account usage, and that the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive account models reaches up to 720 euros per year. Stiftung Warentest counts an account as cheap only when it stays under 60 euros per year.
• Czechia: a 2026 fee overview by the Czech comparison site aRecenze.cz lists withdrawals from another bank's ATM at CZK 49 at Komerční banka, CZK 40 at ČSOB and Česká spořitelna and CZK 35 at Air Bank, while several smaller banks charge nothing. Their worked case: a client who withdraws twice a month from a competitor's ATM pays CZK 1,176 a year, roughly 47 euros, for withdrawals alone.
• Slovakia: according to the advisory firm Partners Group SK, quoted by the portal oPoistení.sk, monthly account fees range from 0 to 15 euros depending on the bank and package, and a poorly set up account can cost you over 100 euros a year more than necessary. As the tech portal TECHBYTE.sk noted in March 2026, Slovak banks must by law also offer a basic bank product at 0 euros and a basic payment account capped at about 3 euros per month, yet few people ever ask for them.

So if you answered A on question 3, the published averages suggest you should double-check. If you answered C anywhere, you are in good company, and that is exactly the problem.

Why almost everyone guesses low

There is a structural reason this quiz is hard. A study on the EU payment accounts market published by the European Commission in January 2021 examined the transparency and comparability of account fees and found that fees remain genuinely difficult for consumers to compare. The cost is not one number on one line. It is a maintenance fee here, an ATM fee there, a card fee, a paper statement fee, spread across twelve months and two dozen statement lines.

Each line feels too small to act on. The yearly total is what surprises people, and almost nobody ever adds it up.

A model example: how an ordinary account reaches 132 euros a year

This is a model example (modelovy priklad), not a real customer, and you can recheck every step. Take an account with fees well inside the ranges above:

• Maintenance: 7 euros a month = 84 euros a year
• Two withdrawals a month from other banks' ATMs at 1.50 euros each = 36 euros a year
• Paper statement by post: 1 euro a month = 12 euros a year

Total: 132 euros a year, or 11 euros a month, for services that a well-chosen account often provides for a fraction of that. No single line looked worth a phone call. The sum does.

What that money could do instead

Suppose you moved those 11 euros a month into regular investing instead. (A return of about 7% a year is only illustrative, roughly a long-run average of stock markets. Past performance does not guarantee future results, the value of an investment can also fall, and this text is not financial advice.) With monthly compounding, 11 euros a month comes to about €1,904 after 10 years and about €5,730 after 20 years. You can verify it: 11 × ((1 + 0.07/12)^120 − 1) / (0.07/12) = 1,904.

That is the real stake of this quiz. Not one annoying fee, but a quiet yearly leak with a two-decade price tag.

How to find your exact number

You do not have to estimate. Three ways, from slow to fast:

• The annual statement of fees. Under the EU Payment Accounts Directive (2014/92/EU), your bank must give you a free yearly statement listing every fee it charged you. Most people never open it. Yours is waiting in your internet banking documents.
• A manual scan. Open your last statement and search for lines like fee, poplatok, Entgelt or maintenance. Multiply the monthly ones by twelve.
• Let the numbers add themselves up. Upload one statement at app.vestelonflow.com and VESTELON FLOW runs the analysis directly in your browser: you see your number in about a minute, no account and no bank login needed, and nothing leaves your device without your consent.

Once you have the real figure, compare it with your quiz answer from question 3. If the gap makes you wince, our guide to hidden bank fees shows which lines are easiest to cut first.

The challenge

Send this quiz to one friend and compare answers before you compare statements. In our experience the guesses land far apart, the real numbers land close together, and the person who laughed first usually pays more. There is only one way to find out which of you that is.