IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/fmktpm/v36y2022i3d10.1007_s11408-021-00402-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

German banks’ behavior in the low interest rate environment

Author

Listed:
  • Ramona Busch

    (Deutsche Bundesbank)

  • Helge C. N. Littke

    (Deutsche Bundesbank)

  • Christoph Memmel

    (Deutsche Bundesbank)

  • Simon Niederauer

    (Deutsche Bundesbank)

Abstract

Using data from a quantitative survey of German banks at three points in time (2015, 2017 and 2019), we analyze the impact of changes in the interest rate level on banks’ net interest income and the countermeasures they take. A decline in the interest rate level has a more negative impact on net interest income, the longer the decline lasts and the lower the interest rate level is. This impact softens with increasing risk of changes in the present value of banking books. We do not find that banks generally increase their risks following a drop in income. However, poorly capitalized banks subsequently increase the credit risk of their bond portfolio. After a fall in operational income, banks increase their fee and commission income and reduce their costs. In addition, banks tend to extend their mortgage lending after a drop in their interest income.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramona Busch & Helge C. N. Littke & Christoph Memmel & Simon Niederauer, 2022. "German banks’ behavior in the low interest rate environment," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(3), pages 267-296, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:fmktpm:v:36:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s11408-021-00402-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11408-021-00402-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11408-021-00402-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11408-021-00402-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christoph Memmel, 2020. "What drives the short‐term fluctuations of banks' exposure to interest rate risk?," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(4), pages 674-686, October.
    2. Michael Brei & Claudio Borio & Leonardo Gambacorta, 2020. "Bank intermediation activity in a low‐interest‐rate environment," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 49(2), July.
    3. Chaudron, Raymond F.D.D., 2018. "Bank's interest rate risk and profitability in a prolonged environment of low interest rates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 94-104.
    4. Christoph Memmel, 2018. "Why Do Banks Bear Interest Rate Risk?," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 70(3), pages 231-253, July.
    5. Piergiorgio Alessandri & Benjamin D. Nelson, 2015. "Simple Banking: Profitability and the Yield Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(1), pages 143-175, February.
    6. Stefan Kerbl & Boris Simunovic & Andreas Wolf, 2019. "Quantifying interest rate risk and the effect of model assumptions behind sight deposits," Financial Stability Report, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 37, pages 73-85.
    7. Boungou, Whelsy, 2020. "Negative interest rates policy and banks’ risk-taking: Empirical evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    8. Yener Altunbas & Leonardo Gambacorta & David Marques-Ibanez, 2014. "Does Monetary Policy Affect Bank Risk?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 10(1), pages 95-136, March.
    9. Dräger Vanessa & Heckmann-Draisbach Lotta & Memmel Christoph, 2021. "Interest and credit risk management in German banks: Evidence from a quantitative survey," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 63-95, February.
    10. Delis, Manthos D. & Kouretas, Georgios P., 2011. "Interest rates and bank risk-taking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 840-855, April.
    11. J.A. Bikker & Tobias M. Vervliet, 2017. "Bank Profitability and Risk-Taking under Low Interest Rates," Working Papers 17-10, Utrecht School of Economics.
    12. Christoph Basten & Mike Mariathasan, 2018. "How Banks Respond to Negative Interest Rates: Evidence from the Swiss Exemption Threshold," CESifo Working Paper Series 6901, CESifo.
    13. Phil Molyneux & Alessio Reghezza & John Thornton & Ru Xie, 2020. "Did Negative Interest Rates Improve Bank Lending?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 51-68, February.
    14. Memmel Christoph & Seymen Atılım & Teichert Max, 2018. "Banks’ Interest Rate Risk and Search for Yield: A Theoretical Rationale and Some Empirical Evidence," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 19(3), pages 330-350, August.
    15. Raghuram G. Rajan, 2005. "Has financial development made the world riskier?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 313-369.
    16. Angela Maddaloni & Jose-Luis Peydro, 2011. "Bank Risk-taking, Securitization, Supervision, and Low Interest Rates: Evidence from the Euro-area and the U.S. Lending Standards," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 2121-2165.
    17. Klein, Melanie, 2020. "Implications of negative interest rates for the net interest margin and lending of euro area banks," Discussion Papers 10/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Christoph Memmel, 2014. "Banks' interest rate risk: the net interest income perspective versus the market value perspective," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(6), pages 1059-1068, June.
    19. Busch, Ramona & Drescher, Christian & Memmel, Christoph, 2017. "Bank stress testing under different balance sheet assumptions," Discussion Papers 07/2017, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    20. Lopez, Jose A. & Rose, Andrew K. & Spiegel, Mark M., 2020. "Why have negative nominal interest rates had such a small effect on bank performance? Cross country evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    21. Albertazzi, Ugo & Gambacorta, Leonardo, 2009. "Bank profitability and the business cycle," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 393-409, December.
    22. Stefan Kerbl & Michael Sigmund, 2016. "From low to negative rates: an asymmetric dilemma," Financial Stability Report, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 32, pages 120-137.
    23. Basten, Christoph & Mariathasan, Mike, 2023. "Interest rate pass-through and bank risk-taking under negative-rate policies with tiered remuneration of central bank reserves," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. López-Penabad, Maria Celia & Iglesias-Casal, Ana & Silva Neto, José Fernando, 2022. "Effects of a negative interest rate policy in bank profitability and risk taking: Evidence from European banks," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    2. Bongiovanni, Alessio & Reghezza, Alessio & Santamaria, Riccardo & Williams, Jonathan, 2021. "Do negative interest rates affect bank risk-taking?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 350-364.
    3. Nimrod Segev & Sigal Ribon & Michael Kahn & Jakob De Haan, 2021. "Low Interest Rates and Banks' Interest Margins: Does Deposit Market Concentration Matter?," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2021.16, Bank of Israel.
    4. Joscha Beckmann & Klaus-Jürgen Gern & Nils Jannsen, 2022. "Should they stay or should they go? Negative interest rate policies under review," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 885-912, October.
    5. Lopez, Jose A. & Rose, Andrew K. & Spiegel, Mark M., 2020. "Why have negative nominal interest rates had such a small effect on bank performance? Cross country evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    6. Whelsy Boungou, 2019. "Negative Interest Rates, Bank Profitability and Risk-taking," Working Papers hal-03456106, HAL.
    7. J.A. Bikker & Tobias M. Vervliet, 2017. "Bank Profitability and Risk-Taking under Low Interest Rates," Working Papers 17-10, Utrecht School of Economics.
    8. Bottero, Margherita & Minoiu, Camelia & Peydró, José-Luis & Polo, Andrea & Presbitero, Andrea F. & Sette, Enrico, 2022. "Expansionary yet different: Credit supply and real effects of negative interest rate policy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 754-778.
    9. Boungou, Whelsy, 2021. "Empirical evidence of the lending channel of monetary policy under negative interest rates," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 309-318.
    10. Bats, Joost V. & Giuliodori, Massimo & Houben, Aerdt C.F.J., 2023. "Monetary policy effects in times of negative interest rates: What do bank stock prices tell us?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    11. Boungou, Whelsy & Hubert, Paul, 2021. "The channels of banks’ response to negative interest rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    12. Marcel Barmeier, 2022. "The new normal: bank lending and negative interest rates in Austria (Marcel Barmeier)," Working Papers 242, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    13. Junttila, Juha & Nguyen, Vo Cao Sang, 2022. "Impacts of sovereign risk premium on bank profitability: Evidence from euro area," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Wang, Ling, 2023. "Central bank asset purchases, banks’ risky security holdings and profitability: Macro and micro evidence from Japan and the U.S," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 347-364.
    15. Fernando Avalos & Emmanuel C Mamatzakis, 2018. "Euro area unconventional monetary policy and bank resilience," BIS Working Papers 754, Bank for International Settlements.
    16. Molyneux, Philip & Pancotto, Livia & Reghezza, Alessio & Rodriguez d'Acri, Costanza, 2022. "Interest rate risk and monetary policy normalisation in the euro area," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    17. Bubeck, Johannes & Maddaloni, Angela & Peydró, José-Luis, 2020. "Negative Monetary Policy Rates and Systemic Banks' Risk‐Taking: Evidence from the Euro Area Securities Register," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 52(S1), pages 197-231.
    18. Chen, Minghua & Wu, Ji & Jeon, Bang Nam & Wang, Rui, 2017. "Monetary policy and bank risk-taking: Evidence from emerging economies," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 116-140.
    19. Kabundi, Alain & De Simone, Francisco Nadal, 2020. "Monetary policy and systemic risk-taking in the euro area banking sector," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 736-758.
    20. Lathaporn Ratanavararak & Nasha Ananchotikul, 2018. "Bank Profitability and Risk-Taking in a Low Interest Rate Environment: The Case of Thailand," PIER Discussion Papers 89, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:fmktpm:v:36:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s11408-021-00402-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.