It's an extreme expansionary policy designed to keep the economy afloat by making people pay money to keep it in banks. Normally this is done by dropping interest rates below inflation; this is the nuclear option for economies. The fact that they are still stuck on this is not a good sign for what may happen to Europe next recession.

This is one of the inherent limitations of a shared currency: Greece needs expansion; Germany needs contraction. Help one; harm the other. It's very difficult to do the kind of things America (or most other nations) can do with Europe for this reason.

The rate at which the bank gets money from the central bank is negative, and your local bank adds on 1.5 to that (for a variable) rate from what i remember, so overall the rate was 0.8% I think.

So you don't get paid, but you do get subsidized.