Talking Shop: Reducing Impact of Negative Interest Rates in Europe

# Banking

# EMEA

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected].

Member Question: “What solutions are available to reduce the impact of negative interest rates in the eurozone?

“Our bank there charges 1% on euro deposits. We have cash pooling, but converting to USD daily seems like a pain.”

Peer answer 1: “Our global bank charges us 0.5% at the moment, but our local controllers mentioned there are EMEA regional banks that will waive the interest charge with a minimum deposit. We haven’t had time to explore that yet.” Peer answer 2: “We are currently being charged 0.4%. We do weekly EUR to USD conversion to minimize the costs as well as investing USD in offshore money market funds.” Peer answer 3: “Have you spoken with your bank about notional pooling? If not, that may be an option to discuss and see if they have solutions.”