Government bond: no agreements between banks
23 August 2023 - 2 min Reading time
From 24 August, consumers will be able to subscribe to the government bond, a bond issued by the government and with which it intends to address citizens directly. The citizen will be able to subscribe to the state certificate through a large number of banks, or directly through the government.
Today, however, we read in some media that banks have made agreements not to increase the interest on savings books during the period in which citizens can subscribe to the government bond. Febelfin would like to emphatically emphasize that there are no agreements on commercial policy, and therefore on interest rates, between the banks. Incidentally, this is not permitted under competition law, and is therefore absolutely out of the question.
Bank Degroof Petercam; Belfius Bank, Beobank, BNP Paribas Fortis; Bpost Bank; Crelan; Deutsche Bank; ING; KBC; Keytrade Bank ; Leleux Associated Brokers; Van de PUT & Co; VDK Spaarbank
The distributing banks have only signed a contract, each individually in relation to the Debt Agency, which also includes a short clause not to adjust the interest on their savings bonds during the subscription period of the government bonds. This is a standard clause that has been imposed by the government for years when issuing government bonds. Moreover, savings certificates are hardly offered by the banks today.
It is up to each bank individually, in line with their commercial policy, to determine the interest on their savings accounts or their term accounts, also during the government bond subscription period.
