For 7 straight years the European Central Bank has charged their member banks for holding deposits. And so those banks have gradually passed that negative interest rate along to their customers. It is common now, for banks to charge their largest depositors for holding their funds, and recently 2 German Regional Banks have placed a negative 1/2% charge for all level of deposits. A trend that is expected to be followed throughtout Germany. Negative interest for all savers.

Fortunately that trend has not yet hit the United States, and as an investor we can hope that it never does.