The accounts

Two thousand euros arrive in the current account.

A current account is a crossroads, not a safe. Everything passes through; nothing grows there.

A year later: two thousand euros. Exactly the same ones.

That is fine for a week. It is expensive for a year.

Money that waits is not money kept safe. It is money at forced rest.

The savings passbook has a ceiling: twenty-two thousand nine hundred and fifty euros, not one more.

Available in a day, no risk, no tax. Those are its three qualities.

And a fourth trait, which is a flaw: it pays little. Say three per cent.

Six hundred and eighty-eight euros and fifty cents, for a whole year.

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It is little, and it is the price of being able to withdraw everything tomorrow morning. That price is fair.

Above the ceiling, you need something else. Ten thousand euros, for instance.

The term deposit: you lock the money, and the bank states the rate in advance.

Three and a half per cent, fixed on the day you open it. They will not move again.

Two years later: ten thousand seven hundred and twelve euros and twenty-five cents.

The same ten thousand in a passbook at three per cent: ten thousand six hundred and nine.

One hundred and three euros and twenty-five cents of difference, over two years.

That is not nothing, and it is not free. For two years, this money is no longer entirely yours.

Leaving before the term costs a penalty, and the promised rate collapses.

So never the emergency fund here. It has to be there on Tuesday, without warning anyone.

One account is left whose terms nobody reads: the joint account.

Either holder can withdraw everything, alone, without telling the other.

And each one answers for the whole overdraft. Not for half of it: for all of it.

One bounced cheque written by one of you, and both are barred from banking.

It can be avoided: name a single responsible holder when you open it. One box to tick.

One signature on the hook instead of two. That is all this box changes.

There is also the undivided account: two signatures for every operation. Heavier, safer.

None of these accounts is better. The passbook pays three, the term deposit three and a half.

The crossroads, the open safe, the locked safe, and the one you open together. Four questions, not one.