The Eurosystem’s negative interest rate policy (NIRP) incentivised banks to also charge their customers negative deposit rates. My analysis shows that German banks did actually charge negative interest rates on corporate deposits at times. However, the banks that did so were primarily those which relied heavily on household deposits as a source of funding. These banks were very reluctant to apply negative interest rates to household deposits as well, and thus probably faced particularly high margin pressure. It was primarily these banks that also charged higher fees in order to ease this pressure.

The Bundesbank's climate-related disclosures for 2023 update and supplement last year’s results, in line with the Eurosystem’s decisions.