ABN Amro, ING savings rate below 1 percent

ABN Amro and ING announced a decrease in their savings account interest rates on Friday. The Dutch banks will both drop their rate from one percent to 0.9 percent in the last week of April. The drop at ING takes place on April 29. ABN Amro will initiate the reduction a day later. Decreases in interest rates also affect most other types of savings accounts offered by the banks. Rabobank previously announced a decrease in their savings rate as well, taking it below one percent. The rate at which banks can currently deposit money with the ECB is -0.2%. This effectively means that banks have to pay the ECB to hold money on its account. This measure is implemented to facilitate lending and investment through decreasing interest rates in private banks.