In recent months, a massive reallocation of funds has been quietly taking place. The current involved scale is approximately 90 trillion yuan, and according to year-end expectations, this number will swell to 120 trillion yuan.

You might ask—where does so much money come from?

Simply put, it’s the money ordinary people have deposited in banks. This is an astronomical figure: a total of 162 trillion yuan in savings, divided among 1.4 billion people, averaging about 115,000 yuan per person. What does that mean? No matter how much they save, people still feel it’s not enough.

Looking back at historical records, the savings habits of the public have experienced two obvious peaks.

**The first wave was in 1996.** That year was crazy, with deposit growth soaring to 51.9%. Wealthy individuals had only one thought: hurry and deposit money in the bank. Why the rush? It goes back a few years. After 1992, the economy expanded rapidly, with M2 growth reaching as high as 28%. What was the result? Inflation followed—14.7% in 1993, even sharper at 24.1% in 1994, and 17% in 1995. You can imagine what the markets looked like at that time: sesame paste, vinegar, soy sauce—buying enough for one or two months, with prices spiraling out of control.

Back then, policymakers couldn’t sit still either. They introduced a killer move—the value-preserving savings. The idea was that if the price increase exceeded the interest rate provided by banks, the bank would proactively compensate you, ensuring you wouldn’t lose out. Plus, interest rates at the time weren’t low— in 1996, the five-year deposit rate was 12%, and with the value-preserving subsidy, the overall rate once exceeded 20%. How could that not be attractive? Everyone scrambled to deposit money in banks.

**The second peak is in these past five years.** Banks have been cutting interest rates, housing prices have started to loosen, but the pressures of employment and income haven’t lessened, so people started to do the math. Instead of speculating in real estate or investing in uncertain assets, it’s better to hold onto cash to ensure sufficient liquidity. This logic is very practical and pragmatic.

From comparing these two peaks, you can see: when are people most willing to save money? It’s when there’s some uncertainty about the future. Economic conditions are unpredictable, income expectations are unstable, and risk awareness is heightened, so they choose the safest option—the bank savings. Behind this is actually a subtle shift in the entire society’s wealth management mindset.