Status: 09.11.2021 13:59
For months, a dispute about custody fees for savings accounts has been smoldering between the Hamburg consumer center and Commerzbank. In the absence of an agreement, the consumer advocates are now going to court.
The question of whether banks and savings banks are allowed to charge negative interest rates on savings accounts must now be decided by a court: After a month-long dispute with Commerzbank, the Hamburg consumer center has filed a lawsuit against the financial institution at the Frankfurt Regional Court. Because from the point of view of consumer advocates, the demand for fees on savings accounts is illegal. This also applies to the Frankfurt bank’s plan to conclude agreements with existing customers on custody fees disguised as so-called “credit fees”.
Commerzbank declined to comment. “Customers should not only receive no more interest, but also pay for the loan they have granted,” said consumer advocate Sandra Klug. With this regulation, the purpose of a savings contract is reduced to absurdity. Commerzbank passed on general operating costs or other expenses that would be in the company’s interests to its customers, without them receiving any additional service in return.
Unclear legal situation
Commerzbank has been charging negative interest rates for private customers since August 1st. New customers of the credit institution who park deposits over 50,000 euros with the financial institution will in future pay 0.5 percent of the deposit amount as a so-called custody fee. “With his signature, the customer declares that he agrees to the custody agreement,” says the bank.
In fact, both new and existing customers are affected by negative interest rates, both at private banks such as Commerzbank and at most savings banks and cooperative banks. For new customers, the negative interest rates apply when the contract is signed. Credit institutions have to make individual agreements with existing customers.
The financial institutions regard the safekeeping of deposits as a service for which they are allowed to charge a fee. Such savings accounts or books are for deposits with a three-month notice period. However, the legal situation is unclear. It is true that the Federal Court of Justice qualified savings deposits as irregular custody. It is undecided, however, whether the judges have also considered negative interest rates on savings deposits to be permissible.
Banks also have to pay penalty interest
The situation is all the more delicate as banks and savings banks are also affected by the zero interest rate environment: They have to pay interest themselves if they store money at the European Central Bank (ECB) overnight. This is currently 0.5 percent. Many banks are increasingly passing this “penalty interest” on to their customers. According to a survey by the comparison portal Verivox, almost 400 credit institutions were already charging negative interest rates from their private customers at the end of September. Of these, over 200 banks and savings banks only introduced negative interest rates this year. In addition, more and more financial institutions are tightening their existing negative interest regulations by reducing tax exemptions or pushing interest rates even deeper into the red.