As a practical matter, these restrictions currently do not impede the payment of interest on consumer deposits because depository institutions generally are permitted to offer individuals interest-  2  BIS Review 14/2006  bearing negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) accounts, which are checkable transaction accounts similar to demand deposits.
To compete for the liquid assets of businesses, however, banks have been compelled to set up complicated procedures to pay implicit interest on compensating balance accounts and they spend resources--and charge fees--for sweeping the excess demand deposits of businesses into money market investments on a nightly basis.