COPENHAGEN: Danske Bank said on Monday it would lower the threshold for applying negative interest rates on retail deposits to 100,000 Danish crowns ($16,260), following an increase in deposits at the bank.

Danish banks have been dealing with negative interest rates for some time. In November last year, Danske lowered its threshold for when it would charge customers from 1.5 million crowns to 250,000 crowns.

"We have experienced highly unusual interest rate levels for a long time now, and there is no prospect of this changing," Danske's head of personal customers, Mark Wraa-Hansen, said in a statement.

"At the same time, we see a significantly increasing deposit surplus, which in the current interest rate environment results in a considerable expense for the bank. This is obviously not sustainable for us in the long term," he said.

Danske said it would apply the same rate, -0.6%, as it currently charges. That reflects the rate the lender pays by depositing money at Denmark's central bank.

The bank will also introduce an interest rate spread of minus 0.75% to minus 1% for business clients, it said.

The changes will take effect on July 1.