The European Central Bank and the Bank of England decided today to hold steady with their interest rates --1.0% and 0.5% respectively. That essentially means Europe's top bankers are taking a wait and see approach to give past monetary policy moves more time to work against unemployment and credit crunch woes. Edmund Conway , economics editor for The Telegraph , suggests that there is--or was--a move available to the Bank of England that is,at the least, interesting to consider: negative interest rates for banks. The goal: to get the banks lending. Conway points out that there is more money in the Bank of England reserves than there is out in the real world (in cash). Here's a graph from Conway: The negative interest rate idea comes from a former B of E policymaker, Charles Goodhart. Conway explains the idea: At the moment they receive interest on those reserves at the Bank rate (ie 0.5pc), which is hardly generous but then is no deterrent to leaving the cash safely in the bank. If, as Goodhart suggests, you charge them a 0.5pc fee on every pound above a certain amount, it would encourage them to go out and use that cash lending to businesses and people, hopefully combating the credit crunch. That, at least, is the theory. Novel, but not quite unprecedented: Sweden last month introduced a similar levy on bank reserves - though they haven’t embarked on QE (quantitative easing) in quite the way the UK has. Read Conway's post here .