ABN Amro lowers savings interest to 0.01%

ABN Amro is lowering the interest on its freely withdrawable savings accounts from 0.02 percent to 0.01 percent as of November 1st, the bank said on its website on Friday. Savings interest at ING is still 0.02 percent and at Rabobank 0.03 percent, NU.nl reports

Banks are under pressure to keep the interest rates on their savings accounts low, mainly due to European Central Bank policies. The ECB hopes that by keeping the interest rates low, consumers will be more likely to spend their money instead of saving it, thereby boosting the economy and achieving an inflation rate target of just under 2 percent.

So far, that hasn't been very successful. In September the ECB again took stimulus measures. One such was lowering the deposit rate - the interest banks receive for storing capital at the ECB - to -0.5 percent. This means banks are now paying interest to keep money at the ECB.

Last month analysts told Financieele Dagblad that negative interest on savings is an "unavoidable future".