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Business/Finance See other Business/Finance Articles Title: German retail bank announces negative interest rates Berlin (dpa) - A German retail bank announced Wednesday negative interest rates for big deposits, meaning it will charge 0.25 per cent to keep the customer‘s money if an account goes over 500,000 euros (635,000 dollars). Last year, the European Central Bank (ECB) began imposing negative interest rates on big banks that lodge funds with it overnight, but this is believed to be the first time in Germany that rates for private customers have gone negative. Skatbank, a small lender based in the eastern German town of Altenburg, said the negative rate would begin next month. A spokesman said that currently, Skatbank, which has 15,000 customers, advertises zero per cent for any part of a deposit over 500,000 euros. Interest rates in Germany have tumbled to near zero as the ECB tries to revive the sluggish eurozone economy with cheap loans, so far without any great success. While financial markets welcome cheap money, wealthy Germans often grumble at the lack of profitable ways to invest money. An internet portal, Verivox, said some commercial banks had begun imposing negative rates on business customers several weeks ago. Poster Comment: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=842764.0;all Sr. Member phillipsjk...Another reason why Bitcoin is a superior place to store wealth hua_hui The problem is that the bitcoin price is too volatile and the conversion rate to fiat is decreasing so end up the total value of their bitcoin holding in terms of fiat is still losing. There is still no strong reason to incentivize ppl to hold bitcoin. adhitthana Quote from: DeadCoin "You're joking, right? Bitcoin has lost 70% this year, and it has volatility up to 15% a day. How is that superior?" No. I don't think you understood what I wrote. I said it was a reason. I didn't say anyone should buy Bitcoin, or that it had been the best investment in recent months. What I did say is that Bitcoin is superior over this kind of bank deposit in as much as you don't get penalised merely for storing it. fathur01 Soon this will affect all non-bitcoin users. Bitcoin is not fad. It is serious future. Cool The protocol is, maybe not bitcoin in its current state and form. I think in the next few years a new payment processor similar to bitcoin will take over. adhitthana Quote from: hua_hui ... "The problem is that the bitcoin price is too volatile and the conversion rate to fiat is decreasing so end up the total value of their bitcoin holding in terms of fiat is still losing. There is still no strong reason to incentivize ppl to hold bitcoin." I'd agree, but Bitcoin is still very young. It does have this important advantage, though until regulatory issues become clear it will still be subject to the kind of volatility we see. But, I'd also suggest that there are some broader deeper issues that come into view when banks both charge to hold a fiat currency and or confiscate deposits (as we saw in Cyprus). Bitcoin does address some of these issues, even though it still has significant problems of it's own. Unbelive Quote from: adhitthana "Another reason why Bitcoin is a superior place to store wealth" Banks need to keep your money safe. So is normal they want some fee for that. With Bitcoin you are the bank, so no need to pay yourself for that. adhitthana It's actually not normal with a fiat currency. It might be normal with say gold, but when banks have the ability to create credit out of nothing, then it is "normal" for them to pay interest on deposits. What is not normal is when a central bank (in this case the ECB) charges banks to store (fiat) money in an attempt to stimulate business. And this was the precursor to this earlier in the year. galbros Negative nominal interest rates should never happen. After all, you could just keep your money in your pocket or house. Plus people are generally assumed to prefer consumption today rather than tomorrow. It's interesting how this has not proved the case, first in Japan, where an aging population decided that the future was way more important than the present and now more broadly in Europe. ya.ya.yo! I think it's not the only bank that has effectively a negative interest rate. Many other banks don't pay any significant interest but have service fees that exceed any potential return on small - medium deposits. Explicitly implementing negative interest rates is a bad marketing decision by the bank. From a business perspective it's wiser to simply establish more hidden fees. Of course the whole concept of interest is an idiotic one, that can only exist in our debt-based fiat money system. pawel7777... Quote from: adhitthana "Another reason why Bitcoin is a superior place to store wealth" That's just plain insane... Quote from: DeadCoin "You're joking, right? Bitcoin has lost 70% this year, and it has volatility up to 15% a day. How is that superior?" Nope, it's actually up 62% (compared to 2 Nov 2013). The superiority point isn't about current exchange rates. If you store 1 BTC in a secure wallet, you will have 1 BTC after 1,2,5 or whatever number of years + you know exactly what the supply inflation will be. With fiat, you can't be sure of anything, regulators can surprise you with things like negative interest etc. Argwai96... Many other banks don't pay any significant interest but have service fees that exceed any potential return on small - medium deposits. Explicitly implementing negative interest rates is a bad marketing decision by the bank. From a business perspective it's wiser to simply establish more hidden fees. Of course the whole concept of interest is an idiotic one, that can only exist in our debt-based fiat money system. ya.ya.yo! Most banks will actually not pay any interest on even medium sized deposits (anything under a few thousand dollars) if you have an appropriate kind of account for your balance. These banks will also allow you to avoid paying fees by meeting certain criteria (for example using their bill pay service or using your debit card so many times per month, or by receiving your paycheck via direct deposit into your account adhitthana...Quote from: luckyluigi 'That policy makes no sense to me. Someone explain why they would do this?" A short time ago the ECB (European Central Bank) announced that banks who deposited money with them would get a negative interest rate, so I guess the banks are passing it along. Here is the earlier announcement from the ECB. http://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/faqinterestrates.en.html The ECB have been pumping new fiat money into Europe but they don't want the banks to merely just deposit this money back into the ECB and earn interest. The ECB believe (or hope) they can revive the European economy if only the banks will lend money out to businesses. We are the ones we've been waiting for . Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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