負利率的時代

The Era of Negative Interest Rates

本文旨在探討央行負利率政策背後的成因以及潛在影響，並特別說明歐洲、日本等國實施負利率政策的現況。在經濟疲弱不振，且各國央行已用盡各種傳統貨幣政策卻仍束手無策的時代，如何在不激起金融市場大幅震盪的前提下，引導資金走向促進社會繁榮的道路，遂變為當務之急。負利率的目的有三：1.緩解國內的通縮壓力，刺激銀行積極貸款；2.穩定匯率，避免貨幣升值；3.是低利率下的非傳統貨幣政策。值得注意的是負利率只會出現在央行政策利率，不會出現在普通儲蓄者。例如丹麥實施負利率政策的標的為存單利率(certificates of deposit rate)，並非一般銀行的存款利率，而是「央行的存款利率」。負利率政策的效果是銀行的財富管理及非利息收入增加。本文最後以歐洲央行、丹麥央行和日本央行為例，說明負利率的工具、目的與效果。

This paper aims at discussing the reasons of negative interest rate policy (NIRP) conducted by central banks worldwide, especially in European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BOJ), and the potential impacts of the policy. In the era of economic recessions and during which central banks worldwide have found no pronounced effect of traditional monetary policies, the main question of the governments is: how to guide the money to flow back to the real sector and thus stimulate the economy without hampering the financial market? There are three main purposes of conducting NIRP. The first is to mitigate domestic deflation pressure and stimulate bank lending. The second is to stabilize the exchange rate and prevent the local currency to appreciate. Third, NIRP serves as a non-traditional monetary policy in the low-interest-rate environment. One has to note that negative interest rate only appears in the form of central bank's policy rate, rather than general deposit rate. For example, the target rate of Danmarks Nationalbank is certificates of deposit rate, which is not the interest rate of the fund depositors provided to banks. The effect of NIRP is the increase of wealth management and non-interest income for banks. Last, I take the examples of ECB, Danmarks Nationalbank and BOJ to illustrate the tool, purpose and effect of NIRP.