A growing number of German banks are passing on negative interest rates to their retail customers as the costs become too high to bear on their own. Berliner Volksbank, the country’s second-largest cooperative lender, started to apply a minus 0.5% rate on deposits exceeding 100,000 euros.

With rates now well below zero, even Denmark’s $440 billion pension system says the environment has become so punishing that it may be time for a change in European rules. The warning comes as pension firms across Europe struggle to generate the returns they need to cover their growing obligations.

As big funds from G-7 nations muscle in on the higher-risk territory in a desperate search for yield, many Australian funds are tapping ever more exotic ways to service their clients. “Bonds are outrageously expensive, and even if you were to buy them and hold on, who’s going to buy them off you?” said CIO of Australia’s top-performing retirement fund.

Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and other financial partners that signed on to help build and maintain the Libra payments network are reconsidering their involvement following a backlash from U.S. and European government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. Major defections could imperil Libra.

EDF issued a warning on Wednesday that its Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset, UK may see construction costs dramatically increase. An even longer delay can be found at a plant being built in Finland. In 2011 the profits across the industry from energy generation were £2.4 Billion ($3.0 billion) to just £751 million ($931 million) in 2018.

One of the country’s biggest banking groups just changed the rules of the game. Until Friday, only people with roughly $1 million in surplus cash at their banks were facing a negative rate. Now, the threshold has been reduced to just over $100,000, with no guarantee it won’t go lower. Other banks have hinted they’ll follow.

Part of the reason they did so well was that virtually all asset classes in their portfolios rose in value. At ATP and PFA, which oversee a combined $230 billion from their headquarters in Denmark, the worry is that the near lock-step movement of bonds and stocks will make it hard to limit losses through diversification, once markets turn.

At $121 billion, worldwide green bond sales this year are already 57% higher than at this point in 2018. Sweden’s longest-dated issue currently in existence is a 3.5% bond repayable in 2039 that yields about zero. Sweden should expand its horizons by offering investors the longest-dated green bond ever seen.

Australian pension funds are taking on more foreign-currency risk as they strive to preserve returns in a low interest-rate environment. 72% of the surveyed super funds plan to increase their share of offshore investments over the next two years. They favour unlisted assets such as private debt, private equity, infrastructure, real estate.

Never before have interest rates in the world’s biggest covered-bond market been this low. And rarely has investor demand for the debt been so high. Pacific Investment Management Co. is among investors embracing Danish mortgage-backed covered bonds, even as negative interest rates mean investors face built-in losses on some bonds.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz says he’ll look into whether it’s possible to prevent German banks from charging most retail-banking clients for deposits, after such a measure was proposed by the leader of Bavaria. Lenders have rejected the idea, saying bans don’t ultimately help clients and could even destabilize financial markets.

It’s really unusual and really distorting the global financial system. Negative rates are like a parallel universe where everything you’ve ever learned about finance and human behaviour is turned upside down. Expected erosion of savings could actually make households more conservative, pulling back on consumption both today and in the future.