How do negative interest rates affect banks?

For some years now, some nominal interest rates on the money and capital markets in the euro area have been negative. This raises the question of the consequences for banks in this interest rate environment. These consequences can affect the level of profitability of the banks, the structure of credit demand and deposit offer, the policy on terms and conditions and related legal issues, as well as technical challenges in capturing negative interest rates in IT systems. In a first sub-project, all German banks were surveyed on these issues by means of an online questionnaire. The majority of the banks consider continuing negative interest rates as a serious threat that could lead to far-reaching changes in the banking sector. The results were processed and published in a journal article in 2016.

In a second sub-project, the acceptance of possible adaptation strategies of local banks was examined from the perspective of the local banking market using an online questionnaire.

In a third sub-project, the legal admissibility of negative deposit interest rates and the compatibility of this phenomenon with current capital market and banking theories were examined. The results were published in a journal article.