For thrift-loving Germans looking to salt money away, a pub in Hamburg's red-light district can be just as good as a bank.

At Schlemmer-Eck in the St. Pauli neighborhood, Herbert Stender—a 75-year-old bartender with tattooed arms and a skull and crossbones on his black baseball cap—has guarded deposits paid in by regulars to the savings club they fondly call “Lawless Hill” since 1987. The association is reminiscent of the kind that once helped foster a culture of fiscal rectitude and propel Germany's economic rebound after World War II.

Today, communal saving in venues such as taverns, pubs, or barber shops is a largely social affair as the tradition experiences a revival in cities like Hamburg and Frankfurt, the country's banking capital. In an age of record-low interest rates that's prompting Germans to spend more and save less, the clubs offer the engineers, lawyers, and students seeking to join a way to do both while upholding the custom started by their mostly working-class predecessors.