Commerzbank says to raise prices for corporate clients

Germany's second biggest lender Commerzbank plans to raise the price of its banking services for corporate customers due to persistent low interest rates, board member Markus Beumer told a newspaper. "We will have to make some things more expensive," Beumer, who is responsible for Commerzbank's flagship business with German medium-sized companies known as the 'Mittelstand,' Handelsblatt newspaper quoted him on Sunday as saying.
Previously, the bank subsidised transaction business with money it earned from deposits, for example, but this is no longer possible amid low interest rates, he said.
"Therefore there is nothing we can do other than to negotiate step-by-step with our clients over the price of our transactions," Beumer said in an interview released ahead of publication on Monday.
However, he ruled out charging punitive interest rates for savings deposits by retail customers and Mittelstand companies, saying such charges would continue to be applied only to large companies and institutional investors.