(by Half Dollar) If the Fed’s full display of financial repression wasn’t enough for one day, let’s kick-it up a notch with everybody’s favorite soon-to-fail-but-never-does bank, Deutsche Bank.
From Handelsblatt (translated by Google):
Frankfurt Deutsche Bank will soon introduce negative interest rates for large deposits in its retail banking business and that of its subsidiary Postbank. “The ongoing pressure from negative interest rates makes it necessary for Deutsche Bank to charge custody fees for new contracts for high deposits beyond an allowance of EUR 100,000 per account from May 18, 2020,” a spokesman for the institute told Handelsblatt on request. The custody fee should amount to 0.5 percent and thus corresponds to the fees that the European Central Bank (ECB) charges banks for money parked there.
“This helps us on the earnings side, but above all it helps to prevent further inflows of particularly high deposits that cost us money,” wrote Manfred Knof, head of the bank’s German private customer business, to his employees. This applies “especially in the event that other banks further adjust their conditions and their customers are looking for an alternative for their deposits with us”.
So far, Deutsche Bank has only charged large corporate clients and very wealthy private clients negative interest on large deposits. The new regulation for high private customer deposits of more than 100,000 euros applies “exclusively for new contracts” in the private customer business. “Existing account contracts are not affected,” said a spokesman for the bank. Customers with lower deposits were also spared. “In the broad customer business with relatively low deposits, Deutsche Bank does not pass on custody fees for deposits to customers.”
Gold may not pay any interest, but no interest is better than negative interest (-0.5%) on fiat currency which is rapidly being debased.
Moreover, if one believes that governments and central banks have been actively suppressing the prices of gold & silver, then the capital gains are about to be spectacular, above and beyond any wealth preservation or wealth insurance the precious metals provide.
Egon von Greyerz and I discussed this very thing recently: