HSBC has become one of the biggest global banks to say that it will begin charging clients on deposits in a range of European currencies.

The decision underlines the extra­ordinary measures banks are taking to prevent their profit margins being crushed in the record low-interest rate environment.

HSBC has written to other banks to warn that it will start charging them for deposits in euros, Swiss francs, Danish krone and Swedish krona — all currencies of countries that have negative interest rates — at its UK, German and Hong Kong operations from this summer.

Levy for lenders’ cash holdings from countries with negative interest rates

It is the first UK bank to introduce such charges after similar announcements from Swiss, German and Nordic institutions.

“HSBC charges banks for deposits they hold with us in currencies where negative interest rates apply,” the UK lender said. “Banks affected have been notified and we continue to monitor the situation.”

The unusual steps come after the ECB last year became the first big central bank to announce a negative deposit rate, in effect a penalty on banks parking their surplus cash.

Central banks in Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland have also imposed negative policy rates of between minus 0.25pc and minus 0.75pc as they battle deflation and currency pressures.

HSBC this week wrote to the banks that will be affected and will introduce the negative interest rates on August 1.

It will not affect the deposits of individual or corporate customers.

German, Swiss, Danish and Swedish banks have been at pains to avoid subjecting the general public or small businesses to fees for depositing cash, preferring to impose levies only on the biggest corporate and institutional customers.

UBS introduced negative interest rates for interbank accounts in 2012 for balances in Swiss francs and in euros, a person familiar with the situation said.

Credit Suisse said in January that negative deposit rates had ‘long applied to the credit balances of financial ­institutions’.

More recently, in the wake of negative interest rates from the Swiss National Bank, both UBS and Credit Suisse have also applied negative interest rates to some corporate and other institutional accounts.

Only Erhvervsbank, a small Danish bank, and Skatbank, a regional German lender, have crossed the psychological Rubicon and announced plans to make retail customers pay to hold money in deposit accounts.

JPMorgan Chase said this year it would start charging some of its biggest institutional customers, such as hedge funds and foreign banks, to make ‘excess’ deposits, which have become too costly under new liquidity rules.

Additional reporting by James Shotter in Frankfurt and Laura Noonan in London

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, May 25th, 2015

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