The EURIBOR surge and bank deposit costs: an investigation of interest rate pass-through and deposit portfolio rebalancing

Against the backdrop of sharp monetary policy tightening, this article studies the links between bank deposit costs and the EURIBOR. In doing so the authors employ an SVAR multivariate model that jointly includes deposit rates and volumes, fitted on monthly data covering the period 2003-2019. Increases in the EURIBOR are found to pass through to bank deposit rates in Spain, pushing up interest rates on term deposits in particular. In turn, increases in the EURIBOR triggered shifts from sight to term deposits. Through both mechanisms, bank deposit costs increased. The article documents that in 2022 the pass-through from the EURIBOR to deposit rates is falling short, relative to what would be expected according to the historical pattern captured by model results; as a result, the increase in bank deposit costs has been weaker than expected. To draw insights into the reasons behind this pattern, the authors analyse several euro area economies. Correlation analyses suggest that the impact of the EURIBOR on deposit rates and costs was weaker in banking sectors with greater excess liquidity and higher market concentration.