on 2 july 2009, sweden's riksbank was the first central bank in the world to implement a negative interest rate, when it lowered its repo rate (the rate at which a central bank lends short-term money to commercial banks against securities) to 0.25%. this caused its linked overnight deposit rate (the interest commercial banks get for depositing money with the central bank overnight) to be pushed down to −0.25%, while the overnight lending rate (the interest a central bank charges commercial banks for overnight lending) was lowered to 0.75%. this was done to counter economic slowdown due to the financial crises of 2008. the bank's deputy governor lars e. o. svensson stated that he had preferred a cut of the repo rate to 0.00%, as this would "entail a better balanced monetary policy, with lower unemployment and higher resource utilisation without inflation deviating too far from the target." the swedish move to a negative discount rate was followed with great interest by central banks around the world.