Since its release, Animal Crossing New Horizons has been attentive in supplying updates that address players’ concerns. From decreasing certain event items to fixing glitches, it’s obvious that Nintendo is listening to its fans. But the latest update included a fix that surprised most players. To that effect, Animal Crossing’s bank interest rate was significantly decreased which means storing bells in the bank to gain high-interest returns is no longer an effective bell-earning strategy.
A letter from Tom Nook himself notifies the player of the decrease in interest and gives a free bell bag-shaped carpet as an apology.
The high bank interest was one of the ways players found to earn a lot of bells real quick, especially for time travelers. The initial interest rate was figured to be around 0.5% which means if you had a million bells in the bank, you would earn an additional 50,000 bells at the start of the month.
Players have found the latest update reduced the interest rate to a mere 0.05% which means that the interest you’ll earn for that same one million bells will come up at around 5,000.
This fix may be to address the current issue of time traveling in the game. Since Animal Crossing is played in real-time, game progression and other rewards come at a slower pace. Some players have found that forwarding or rewinding the time and date on their Switch allowed them to progress further, like upgrading buildings, or gain more rewards, like the interest from bells.
But despite lowering the interest rate, the game is still filled with multiple ways to earn bells real fast. You can farm expensive bugs like tarantulas or scorpions or dabble in turnip trading through the “stalk market”.
It may well be that slashing the interest rates is Nintendo’s way of discouraging time-traveling in general. Though, in reality, it may be too small a factor for time-traveling players to even consider stopping.
The update also includes the addition of new characters and items in the game for the Nature Day event that’ll happen on May 2nd.