The Hamburg-based law Professor Kai-Oliver Knops with the European Central Bank hard to the court: The ECB raised the penal interest rates on Bank deposits are illegal, he notes in a report.
Commercial banks have to pay interest, if you are Parking excess funds at the European Central Bank (ECB). These so-called”negative interest rates” that will apply for 2014 and, more recently, to minus 0.5 percent were increased, rise in the 19 Euro area countries, national Central banks. With the Penalty rate, the ECB wants to achieve that commercial banks submit to the a lot of cheap money the Central Bank makes them available to companies and consumers, so that it flows in investment and consumption. So you want to strengthen the economy a push and the rate of inflation.
Now an opinion is, that the collection of such negative interest rates is unlawful. For depositors and other customers of the banks, this is good news – not applicable to the Basis for passing on such costs to you.
Created the reports Kai-Oliver Knops, Professor for banking and capital market law at the University of Hamburg. The expert estimates that the ECB has conceded since 2014 by the commercial banks, 40 billion Euro – about 7.5 billion Euro per year, minus the interest. “These amounts could call for the Institute now,” says Knops in an interview with DW, “because it is not a sufficient legal basis for the collection”.
Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Knops
“No interest in the legal sense”
“The measure, to turn the interest rate into the Negative, is not justified in the decisions of the ECB, in fact,” argues the expert. He also poses the question whether the immense impact of this monetary policy on the banks and on the deposits of the customers would not have needed the involvement of the European Parliament.
“There is no interest in the legal sense. There is also no penalty interest rates, how to read often in the press,” says Knops. The term for a different case, was occupied in the statutes of the ECB, on the other, the Intention of the ECB was that banks continue to give their money is not in your Parking, but as loans to businesses and consumers.
The thing is that the negative interest rates are something of a “deterrent fee”. “If you look at the European case-law, this is likely to be legally to be seen as a tax,” said Knops, “and for that the European Union is not responsible. The tax sovereignty lies with the member States, not European institutions.”
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The German banks have due to the traditionally high savings rate of private households paid very much. Alone in the year 2018 has been done according to calculations by the Bundesbank, approximately 2.4 billion euros to a minus interest.
On the question of whether to expect due to his opinion now, a wave of lawsuits commercial banks with compensation claims, says the expert more cautious: “at Least in this country we hear that banks would only go very, very reluctantly with the German Bundesbank in a legal dispute.” It could be that a Bank Association to find in the Euro area, “complaining directly to the European court of justice”.
The Bank’s customers could breathe a sigh of relief. Because of its customers, the commercial banks are likely to require in the future, the Depositary fees for deposits and negative interest rates the ECB professions. Knops puts it in the formula: “The banks have nothing to kill, because you owe it to yourself.”