Technically, NIRP arrived in the US back in December when as the WSJ reported at the time, America’s largest banks at that time urged “some of their largest customers in the U.S. to take their cash elsewhere or be slapped with fees, citing new regulations that make it onerous for them to hold certain deposits.” The banks included J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings PLC, Deutsche Bank AG and Bank of America. However, at the time, the NIRP threat was rather nebulous, with the banks telling clients, which range from large companies to hedge funds, insurers and smaller banks, that they will begin charging fees on accounts that have been free for big customersat some point eventually. Nothing was imminent.
That changed overnight, when as the WSJ once again reported, the nebulous became tangible after J.P. Morgan Chase, the largest US bank by assets (and second largest in the US by total derivative notional) is preparing to charge large institutional customers for some deposits. WSJ adds that JPM “is aiming to reduce the affected deposits by billions of dollars, with a focus on bringing the number down this year.
The details on this latest dramatic, and until central-planning arrived, unthinkable, monetary experiment:
