EU banks have pledged to return more than €120bn to shareholders this year following record profits in 2023, according to figures assembled by Swiss bank UBS.
A main reason cited in bank earning calls is interest rates.
Commercial banks currently earn €140bn in profits because the European Central Bank pays much higher interest on the €3.6 trillion excess reserves than the commercial banks pay depositors.
Dutch bank ING, for example, pays depositors 1.5 percent interest ra...
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Wester is a journalist from the Netherlands with a focus on the green economy. He joined EUobserver in September 2021. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Vice, Motherboard, a science-based website, and climate economy journalist for The Correspondent.