Banco Santander is supposedly joining other European lenders, like Deutsche Bank or BBVA in passing on the region’s negative interest rates to some of its financial institutional clients. According to Bloomberg, Spain’s biggest bank notified clients of its securities services unit that it will introduce a fee on their deposits.
At a time when the European Central Bank is charging banks on overnight deposits to encourage spending, the rate, is of -0.4%.
Spain’s second-largest bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, is charging between 0.15 and 0.25% since July.
Santander Securities Services has about 700 billion euros ($782 billion) in assets, according to its website.