Net interest margin, or what the gap in your savings rate buys
Net interest margin is the gap between what a bank earns lending your deposit and what it pays you to hold it, and most of that gap buys four specific things: deposit insurance, a licence and the supervision behind it, a rate that does not move while you sleep, and the right to withdraw on demand.
Net interest margin is the banking industry's own word for the difference between what your money earns and what you are paid for it. It is not a secret, it is simply not on the poster.
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Yield
a live table of staking, lending and vault rates across chains, which is this page as a working app.
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The number has two sides and you are shown one
Your deposit does not sit still. It is lent out, or parked with a central bank, or held in short-dated government debt, and it earns a rate while it is there. You are paid a different, smaller rate. The distance between the two is net interest margin, the industry reports it every quarter, and it is the single most useful number for understanding why a savings rate is what it is.
What the margin buys, which is the part usually left out
Four things, and they are worth naming because they are the answer to why anyone accepts the smaller number. Deposit insurance, so a bank failing does not take your savings with it. A licence and the supervision that comes with it. A rate that changes on notice rather than hourly. And the ability to take your money out on a Tuesday afternoon without asking anybody. A page that names the spread without naming what it purchases is telling you half of something.
Where the rest of it goes
Beyond those, the margin pays for the staff, the branches or the app, the fraud losses, the loans that are not repaid, and the profit. Different institutions spend it differently, which is most of why two savings rates differ at all. A bank with no branches and a smaller compliance burden can pay more and often does, and that difference is a business model rather than generosity.
The same money with nobody in the middle, and what that costs instead
Lending markets on public networks pay a rate directly to whoever supplies the money, with no margin taken by an institution, and our own page of those rates is linked below. What you give up is exactly the four things above: there is no deposit insurance, the counterparty is a contract rather than a licensed institution, a dollar stablecoin can lose its peg, and the rate moves hourly with how much is borrowed rather than quarterly with a committee. That is not a better deal or a worse one, it is a different set of risks, and anyone comparing the two numbers without comparing those four things is comparing nothing.
Why the two numbers cannot be ranked
A rate is a price for a risk, so a higher number is usually a statement about what you are carrying rather than about who is more generous. An insured deposit and an uninsured lending position are not two versions of the same product, any more than a bond and a share are. The honest comparison is not which number is bigger but which set of risks you are being paid to hold, and in the on-chain case that set includes contract failure, a peg breaking and a rate that can move while you are asleep.
What to ask of any rate, including ours
Who is paying it, out of what, and what happens if they cannot. A savings rate is paid by a bank out of what it earns on your money, and if it fails the insurance answers. A protocol rate is paid by borrowers out of what they pay to borrow, and if they default the collateral answers, or does not. The answer to those three questions tells you more than the number does, and every rate we show carries the time it was read, because a rate quoted without one is a historical fact dressed as an offer.
Live, right now, on this page
| Market | Price | Funding | 24h volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| BTC | $86,364.50 | 0.0013% | $522,866,341 |
| ETH | $2,750.85 | 0.0013% | $301,603,802 |
| SOL | $118.01 | 0.0013% | $94,709,358 |
| HYPE | $96.97 | 0.0013% | $3,938,323 |
Read from a live market as this page rendered, with the time it was read, which is the minimum any rate should carry. Read at 2026-09-23 02:12 UTC; accurate as of that time and not afterwards.
Start from a working app
Open, change it, publish your own
The Garden
a family portfolio with one garden per person, showing savings, a 15-year forecast and where the money is staked.
Open the template
Working templates built around what this page covers. Open one, change it, and publish your own.
- Yield
a live table of staking, lending and vault rates across chains, which is this page as a working app.
- Family Office
watches any set of public addresses and shows real on-chain balances, priced and rolled up per person, read-only with no custody.
- The Garden
a family portfolio with one garden per person, showing savings, a 15-year forecast and where the money is staked.
Common questions
What is net interest margin?
The difference between what a bank earns on the money you deposit and what it pays you to keep it there. Banks report it every quarter because it is the core of how they make money, and it is the number that explains why a savings rate is what it is rather than something higher.
Why does a bank pay less than it earns on my money?
Because the gap is buying things you are also receiving: deposit insurance so a failure does not take your savings, a licence and the supervision behind it, a rate that changes on notice rather than hourly, and the right to withdraw on demand. The remainder covers staff, fraud losses, loans that are not repaid, and profit.
Is a higher rate elsewhere a better deal?
Not comparable on the number alone. A rate is a price for a risk, so a higher one usually describes what you are carrying rather than who is generous. An uninsured on-chain lending position pays more and gives up deposit insurance, a licensed counterparty, a stable peg and a rate that does not move hourly. Those four differences are the comparison; the two percentages are not.
See the number itself
Pages that read a live market and show what they read, updated while you look at them.
- Stablecoin lending rates, live, what the same money earns with no institution in the middle, and what it gives up.
- Live FX rates, and the three prices people mix up, another price that is really three numbers, with the spread visible.
Related reading
All guides · Live market pages · Components · Make Mithril a preferred source in Google