In June 2014 the European Central Bank dropped its base interest rate below 0% for the first time. It charges “negative interest” on overnight deposits of commercial banks and is not the first or only bank to do this. With this policy central banks hope to stimulate commercial banks to make loans into the real economy instead of depositing excess money with the central bank. As a result the inter-bank interest rates also fell below zero and some banks introduced fees on deposits in current accounts of large customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"