Keep the faith in banking : New evidence for the effects of negative interest rates based on the case of Finnish cooperative banks

This paper analyses the profitability of Finnish cooperative banks during the period of negative nominal interest rates. Contrary to expectations, the continuous decline in money market interest rates between 2009 and 2014, and the following negative rate era, did not have adverse effects on the profitability of banks at the beginning of negative interest rate period. Based on especially using a risk-adjusted measure for bank profitability, these results contrast with previous findings. In our findings, the increasing wholesale funding (WSF) ratio seems to be an important factor. However, after 2017 the banks have not been able to improve especially their risk-adjusted profitability so stro…