First published: The Financial Times, 6/06/2014
Negative deposit rates are novel but of questionable utility
The European Central Bank has gone where no major central bank has gone before by cutting the interest rate it pays commercial banks on deposits from zero to minus 0.10 per cent. The cut was accompanied a comparable decline in its refinancing rate to 0.15 per cent, and by measures that the ECB hopes will boost lending in the euro area, including a €400bn long-term repurchase operation to be made available to banks in September and December….“more:”