BERLIN, June 30 (Xinhua) -- With 349 banks in Germany charging negative interest rates to private customers at the end of June, the number almost doubled from 171 at the end of 2020, the price comparison company Verivox announced on Wednesday.
"The trend towards negative interest rates is not ending," said Oliver Maier, managing director of Verivox. The list of financial institutions in Germany with negative interest rates was growing almost on a daily basis.
Many German banks have recently lowered the deposit limits free of charges. This week, the direct bank ING Deutschland announced to halve the deposit account balance without fees from 100,000 euros (119,000 U.S. dollars) to 50,000 euros.
According to Verivox, 41 financial institutions in Germany already tightened their existing negative interest rate regulations this year or announced to do so in the future. In many cases, negative interest rates were further lowered or maximum allowances free of charges were reduced.
A total of 20 banks and savings banks in Germany now charged a fee for overnight deposit accounts, which is usually free of charge, effectively creating negative interest rates, according to Verivox.
Custody fees initially applied to new customers only, Maier said, adding that banks could not "unilaterally introduce negative interest rates in current contracts." (1 euro = 1.19 U.S. dollars) Enditem
