UniCredit clients will have to pay interest on savings

Negative interest rates could be coming to the Czech Republic, as UniCredit Bank is preparing the way to charge its clients for keeping more than €100,000 in their savings accounts. Representatives of the bank said it was too soon to know whether and under what conditions these measures would be implemented in the Czech Republic. Negative rates have already appeared in the world of finance, but they've been limited to inter-bank loans. UniCredit Bank's boss Jean-Pierre Mustier said that banks were being charged negative interest rates and that it was time to start passing on these costs to their clients. "We must protect the most vulnerable bank clients, those covered by deposit insurance, and then on a case-by-case basis we could consider passing negative rates onto large companies or to certain big clients while offering them a certain number of alternatives," said Mustier.