Frankfurt In the dispute over negative interest rates on savings deposits, the Hamburg consumer center is suing Commerzbank. The consumer advice center announced on Tuesday that it had filed a lawsuit against Commerzbank with the Frankfurt Regional Court (Az. 2-25 O 228/21). The consumer advocates are of the opinion that the money house should not charge a deposit for deposits on savings accounts. This practice is illegal.
Consumer advocates are particularly critical of negative interest rates on savings accounts, i.e. on deposits with a three-month notice period. They view savings deposits legally as loan agreements – whereby customers would give the bank a loan and receive interest in return.
Sandra Klug from the Hamburg Consumer Center criticizes Commerzbank: “Customers should not only receive no more interest, but also pay for the loan they have granted. With this regulation, the purpose of a savings contract is reduced to absurdity. ”Commerzbank declines to comment.
The background to the lawsuit is that Commerzbank also includes savings accounts when calculating the custody fee and not just current and overnight accounts. For new customers, the exemption is 50,000 euros; it relates to the monthly average amount of the euro-denominated credit balances held on all deposit and current accounts. Existing customers would be addressed individually.
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At the end of July it became known that the Hamburg consumer advice center had already issued a warning to Commerzbank for this reason. If a company does not respond to such a warning with a declaration of cease and desist, consumer advocates often take legal action.
Until now, savings accounts were seen as an option for consumers to avoid negative interest rates. However, many financial institutions limit the possibility of depositing money in savings accounts – but not with negative interest. Rather, customers can no longer open savings accounts with numerous banks, or the investment amounts are limited.
The consumer advice center points out that from a legal point of view, custody fees do not count as negative interest. Many banks refer to the negative interest rate of usually 0.5 percent, which they rate, not as minus or negative interest, but as a custody fee.
Criticism of negative interest rates as a “new source of income”
“Commerzbank passes on general operating costs or other expenses that are in the company’s interests to its customers via the custody fee, without them receiving any additional service in return,” complains Klug. The custody fee is not offset by any special service that would justify pricing.
The consumer advice center Hamburg also exercises fundamental criticism of the passing on of negative interest rates by more and more banks. The financial institutions usually cite the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB), which introduced negative interest rates for short-term deposits from commercial banks in 2014, as the reason for charging negative interest rates.
The penalty interest rate has been 0.5 percent since autumn 2019. It applies above a certain allowance, which relieves banks to a certain extent. In addition, credit institutions can also borrow money from the ECB at negative interest rates, which partially offsets the effects.
The banks would only deposit a fraction of the deposits with the ECB, according to the consumer advice center in Hamburg. “We assume that the banks have discovered a new source of income with the custody fee,” says Klug. “In addition, the calculation is completely opaque. We doubt that the banks will pass on the interest savings through their own ECB exemptions to their customers in full. “
More: DKB calculates negative interest from 25,000 euros.