PRESS RELEASE

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ECB Policy Kills Savings Accounts

Sept. 11, 2017 (EIRNS)—The European Central Bank's zero-interest policy has destroyed traditional banking business in Germany. It has been calculated that German families lost €670 billion in failed deposit revenues between 2012 and 2016—money which they would have invested in education for children, houses, etc. Although exact data are not available, deposit banks have lost a correspondent margin on those deposits, which they would have gained by investing in government bonds, life insurance policies, or business enterprises.

As a result, banks have been increasingly pushed towards financial investments in order to write some gains on their balance sheets. But even an investment banker like Deutsche Bank’s John Cryan understood, when he called for an end to the ECB zero-interest policy, that if commercial banking shrinks, this pulls the carpet out from under the financial sector.