STA, 5 January 2020 - NLB, the largest bank in Slovenia, will phase in fees for combined deposits by physical persons of over EUR 250,000 as of April. The monthly fee will amount to 0.04% and will be first charged in May, the bank said in a press release on Tuesday.
The bank will add up the amounts on personal accounts and other accounts, including deposits, held by individuals in NLB, and charge the fee if the combined amount in a certain month exceeds EUR 250,000.
This means that if a client holds EUR 50,000 above the EUR 250,000 threshold for an entire month, he or she will pay a EUR 20 fee, the bank said.
The fee is expected to affect a small number of clients at NLB - some 100 from the network and slightly more from private banking. According to the business newspaper Finance, around 300 clients are expected to pay the fee.
The fee has been recently announced by NLB management board chairman Blaž Brodnjak, who has told the newspaper Delo that deposit fees had already been introduced in the majority of eurozone countries, most of which opted for the EUR 100,000 threshold.
"Fact is that the loan-to-deposit ratio in Slovenia is very unfavourable and deteriorating fast. This means that the volume of deposits compared to loans is higher than in comparable countries," Brodnjak has said.
Due to the lockdown and extensive stimulus measures, deposits have been rising even faster since people have nowhere to spend the money. Household bank deposits have thus already reached EUR 22 billion.
