Negative creep
The negative-rates club is growing. But there is a limit to how low rates can go Feb 6th 2016
IMAGINE a world in which tax offices harry people who file their returns promptly; where big supermarket chains pay their suppliers before the goods fly off the shelves and not months afterwards; and where a pre-paid annual gym membership is more costly than paying month by month. It sounds fanciful, absurd even. Yet such a world came a step closer on January 29th, when Japan’s central bank cut the interest rate on bank reserves to -0.1% (see article).
Like its peers in Denmark, the euro area, Sweden and Switzerland, the Bank of Japan will charge commercial banks for holding deposits with it. Almost a quarter of the world’s GDP now comes from countries with negative rates. Though they defy convention, they have proved a useful addition to the central-banking toolkit. The lowest deposit rate set by the central bank acts as a floor for short-term interest rates in money markets and for borrowing rates generally. Borrowing costs across Europe have tumbled, helping the fight against deflation and driving down exchange rates.
Emboldened, Haruhiko Kuroda, the governor of Japan’s central bank, this week claimed there is no limit to measures to ease monetary policy. On interest rates, at least, that is wrong. The limit may no longer be zero but it does still exist.
Tiers are not enough
Not so long ago it was widely thought that, if interest rates went below zero, banks and their depositors would simply switch to cash, which pays no interest but doesn’t charge any either. Yet deposits in Europe, where rates have been negative for well over a year, have been stable. For commercial banks, a small interest charge on electronic deposits has proved to be bearable compared with the costs of safely storing stacks of cash—and not yet onerous enough to try to pass on to individual depositors.
That has resulted in an unavoidable squeeze on profits of banks, particularly in the euro area, where an interest rate of -0.3% applies to almost all commercial-bank reserves. (As in Switzerland and Denmark, Japan’s central bank has shielded banks from the full effect by setting up a system of tiered interest rates, in which the negative rate applies only to new reserves.) If interest rates go deeper into negative territory, profit margins will be squeezed harder—even in places where central banks have tried to protect banks. And if banks are not profitable, they are less able to add to the capital buffers that let them operate safely.
That would put pressure on banks to charge their own customers for deposits. Such pressure is already starting to tell. Banks in Europe have started to pass on some of the cost of negative rates to big corporate depositors. Their only ready alternative to stashing large pots of cash is safe and liquid government bonds, whose yields have also turned negative, for terms of up to ten years in Switzerland. Rich personal-account holders are next. The boss of Julius Baer, a Swiss private bank, said this week that if interest rates in Europe go further into the red, it might have to charge depositors.
Retail customers are more resistant to charges, because small stashes can easily be stored in a mattress or a home safe. Savers might stomach a modest fee for making bank deposits, but as rates go deeper into negative territory, they will find ways to avoid charges. Switching to cash is the obvious solution, which is why some have suggested getting rid of banknotes altogether, but it is not the only one. Small savers would use any available form of prepayment—gift vouchers, long-term subscriptions, urban-transport cards or mobile-phone SIM cards—to avoid the cost of having money in the bank.
That would be only the start of the topsy-turviness. Were interest rates negative enough for long enough, specialist security firms would emerge that would build vaults to store cash on behalf of big depositors and clear transfers between their customers’ accounts. Firms would seek to make payments quickly and receive them slowly. Tax offices would discourage prompt settlement or overpayment of accounts: one Swiss canton has already stopped discounts for early tax payment and said it wants to receive money as late as possible. Far from being incentivised to lend more, banks worried about shrinking deposits would be warier of extending credit.
As avenues to avoid negative rates are closed off, human ingenuity will ensure that others open up. It may not be zero, but there is still a lower bound to interest rates.
http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20160206_LDC346.png
負利率國俱樂部成形 調降利率有下限嗎
作者：黃維德編譯 2016-02-16 Web Only
目前全球已有近1／4的GDP來自負利率國家；如丹麥、歐元區、瑞士和瑞典央行，日本央行亦於1月29日宣佈，開始針對商業銀行準備金實施-0.1%的負利率。日央行總裁黑田東彥表示貨幣寬鬆沒有限制，調降利率也是嗎？
負利率挑戰傳統，但也已然證明自己是相當有用的工具。負利率之下，歐洲各地的借款成本大幅下滑，有助對抗通縮並拉低匯率。
日本央行總裁黑田東彥大膽地表示，貨幣寬鬆政策是沒有限制的；但至少在利率上，這個說法並不正確。利率的限制或許再也不是零，但限制仍舊存在。
不久之前，許多人還相信，要是利率低於零，銀行和存款者會改為持有現金，如此一來，雖然拿不到利息，但也不必支付利息費用。
然而，歐洲實施負利率超過一年後，銀行的準備金存款仍舊相當穩定。對商業銀行來說，與儲藏大量現鈔的成本相較，負擔小額的利率費用反而比較輕鬆，而且此成本也沒有沉重到得轉嫁給存款者。
這當然會擠壓銀行的獲利，歐元區亦尤其明顯，因為大部分的銀行都得承擔-0.3%的準備金利率；日本則與瑞士和丹麥相同，設立分級制，只對新增的準備金實施負利率。
不過，若負利率幅度繼續增加，獲利將更受擠壓，銀行也可能會被迫向客戶收費。部分歐洲銀行已經開始將部分負利率的成本，轉嫁給大型企業存款客戶；下一步就是富有的私人存款者。
小型存款者比較不易受影響，因為存放小量現鈔並非難事。小存款者或許會願意承擔小額費用，但如果負利率的幅度繼續增加，他們就會開始找尋避開費用的方法。轉為現鈔是方法之一，但也不是唯一的手段；各種各樣的預付機制，例如禮券、長期訂閱、通勤卡等，也都可以避免銀行存款帶來的成本。
要是負利率持續的時間夠長，或許就會出現負責保存現鈔、處理現鈔轉帳的專門保全公司，企業也可能會希望能儘早付款並延後收款。負利率的目標之一即為增加放款誘因，但在此情況下，銀行會擔心存款縮水，變得更不願意增加放款。
負利率無可避免之際，人類自會尋找其他出路。零利率或許已經不是利率的下限，但利率仍舊有下限。（黃維德編譯）
留言列表
高普考補充資料 (3)
