And now for something completly different ...

These days i got a notification from comdirect on 'comdirect Wechselgeld sparen' ('comdirect save change').

The deal is:
- for every payment you do with your comdirect VISA card, they will round up the amount to a whole EUR (so if you fill up your tank for 70.01 EUR as you did not hit the 70.00 number, as you usually try, they will charge you 71 EUR)
- the excess amount will be transferred to your Tagesgeld-Konto (call money account), which has a yield of appr. 2 %
- so your Griokonto (checking account) will be charged somewhat higher, but the difference goes to your interest earning call money account
- for the first 3 months, they will double every EUR transferred to your call money account that way after 3 months (read: you get a 100 % bonus on such transfers from your left to your right pocket; and you will get it after 90 days after the transaction happened - or at the next accounting run after 90 days - have not seen the details on that one)
- afterward this 3 month they will add 10 % to every EUR transferred that way after 3 months (read: the bonus drops from 100 to 10 %)

To me, this sounds like a deal. Where can you get 100 % or 10 % interest nowadays? And: I can always transfer the money from my call money account back to my checking account. It is really just left pocket to right pocket. I have no transaction fees. No time delay ...
While I will not get rich on this or secure my old age pension - millions of transactions could impact the earnings of comdirect. So I doubt, they really have to pay for all this.

Question (and I am totally sure 100 % of readers can provide speculative answers on that one and I expect such multi-line comments on the blog by all of you!):
- why does comdirect offer this?
- is it just to boost turnover with their own VISA cards?
- or can they make up for the costs of doubling / adding 10 % to such transfers by earning interest, getting refunds from VISA, etc?
- just explain the (possible) business case behind that offer to me

Awaiting your postings !

PS: I will write comdirect Investor Relations a question regarding the thinking behind this offer. If they answer, we can compare your comments to their answer.