Frankfurt The interest rate turnaround by the European Central Bank (ECB), which is very likely to be imminent, will affect private customers in the banking sector. According to the comparison portal Verivox, seven banks have recently increased the allowances for calculating negative interest or announced such a step. Two other institutes even refrain entirely from custody fees.
The online bank ING Germany caused a stir in mid-May. It is the first large private customer bank to eliminate the custody fee for the vast majority of customers. As of July, ING will raise the allowances for current and call money accounts from the current 50,000 to 500,000 euros.
Most recently, leading representatives of the European Central Bank (ECB) signaled an imminent turnaround in interest rates in order to slow the rise in inflation. “Based on the current outlook, we will likely be able to end negative interest rates by the end of the third quarter,” Fed Chair Christine Lagarde wrote in a blog post last week.
The interest rate on deposits in the euro zone, which is decisive for monetary policy, is currently still minus 0.5 percent. This means that banks that hold excess liquidity with the central bank pay negative interest for it. Credit institutions, which in turn charge negative interest from customers, usually justify this with the ECB penalty interest rate.
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However, the big turnaround in negative interest rates is still pending. Most financial institutions will move away from this as soon as the ECB removes the negative interest rate. A number of banks and savings banks have even contractually linked the calculation of a custody fee to the ECB deposit rate.
Allowances are sometimes significantly increased
In its investigations, Verivox refers to the price notices of the institutes. Accordingly, two cooperative banks are now completely dispensing with the calculation of negative interest. For example, the cooperative VR-Bank Mittelfranken West has not been charging private customers for a few days. Previously, she had charged both existing and new customers a fee for sums above 50,000 euros.
“We have abolished negative interest rates because the European Central Bank is about to raise interest rates,” the bank said on request. This also applies when the merger with the neighboring Raiffeisenbank Roth-Schwabach is completed in June.
Other money houses increase the allowance so much that only a few customers have to shell out a custody fee. At the Oldenburgische Landesbank, for example, the exemption limit recently rose from EUR 100,000 to EUR 500,000, with negative interest being calculated on the entire balance if the exemption limit is exceeded, according to Verivox.
The Volksbank Rhein-Nahe-Hunsrück is also significantly increasing the exemption amount: from the current EUR 50,000 to EUR 500,000, starting in July. The money house is not yet included in the Verivox statistics.
The trend towards more consumer-friendly pricing has only recently started. According to Verivox, a good 450 financial institutions are currently charging negative interest for private customers – 30 more than at the beginning of the year. This corresponds to a good third of the financial institutions examined. In fact, the number is likely to be even higher because not all conditions are published freely accessible on the Internet.
More: Record inflation in the euro area – prices rise by 8.1 percent