I pulled/quoted some of the article under the link
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/negative-interest-rates-japan-germany-france-150324580.html"What if I said I wanted to borrow $100 from you and pay you back $99 five years later? Would you do it?
Hell no!
And yet this is exactly whats happening right now in the banking systems of Japan, Germany, France, and other European countries.
Negative interest rates where the lender gets paid back less than theyve loaned now add up to 30%, (and counting), of the global tradable bond universe, according to JPMorgan (JPM).
You may have seen for instance that Germany just sold the first negative yielding 30-year bond issue.Well, Japan is a special case, because they have deflation. Their fiat becomes more and more valuable with time (I think it was not done on purpose, and people mostly think it's a problem but that's how it works there), so it makes sense that one should pay back less that one borrowed. As for countries with a stable inflation rate, it seems that the lender loses significantly in this case, but I can see how people might be interested in that. It's just like discounts and promotions. If nobody wants to buy your product for a certain price, you make it lower, and then people buy it and probably even more stuff they never intended to buy. Likewise, if nobody wants to loan from you, and you really need an active flow to get going, you make a negative interest rate.