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The two largest commercial banks in Greece – National Bank of Greece and Eurobank EFG – have positive results for the first nine months of 2010 despite the difficult economic situation in the past year. Bank managers fast responses and efforts rearrangement in terms of financial stagnation were rewarded and the two financial institutions presented a serious capital adequacy. The results show that the National Bank of Greece ended the third quarter of 2010 with 259 million euros net profit and Eurobank EFG with 60 million euros.

The Executive Manager of the National Bank Apostolos Tamvakakis stressed that despite the constraints in the macroeconomic environment the financial institution managed by him has managed to maintain relatively high liquidity and positive balance. Interest income of the bank reached 3.1 billion euros for the nine months of 2010 and registered 7% increase compared to the same period of 2009. Net interest margin is around 4%. The scope of unpaid loans is estimated to be 63%, the loans to deposits ratio of the bank is 99%, and particularly in Greece it is 87%, which is due to an increase in liquidity. Tier I capital adequacy after the capital increase this autumn is 13.1%. In Greece, the company's revenue increased by 3% and reached 2.161 billion euros, while losses amounted to 181 million euros against 593 million euros profit. Losses are due to increasing the tax burden by 93 million euros and mostly to losses on the portfolio of bonds worth 338 million euros against 318 million euros profit in the first nine months of 2009. In South East Europe, the profit for the first nine months of this year is 67 million euros.

Eurobank EFG reported good capital adequacy for the first nine months of  2010, which despite the economic downturn and the 62% lower net income compared to the corresponding period last year, ended the third quarter of 2010 with 60 million euros profit. Tier I capital adequacy of the commercial banks is 10.7%. "Despite the difficult conditions prevailing in the last quarter, our corporate group has managed to improve the indicators of capital adequacy and enhancing liquidity in the third quarter of this year through increased deposits and successful transactions on the international interbank market," said the Executive Manager of Eurobank EFG Nikolaos Nanopoulos. He said that issues relating to capital and liquidity remain a key priority of the financial institution and the consolidation of financial performance will continue in the near future through targeted actions already ongoing. Eurobank EFG corporate group reduced the operating costs by 3% this year and increased its customer deposits during the third quarter to 43.6 billion euros, mainly abroad. The net interest income amounted to 1.7 billion euros or 1.9% compared to the same period last year, while revenue from fees and commissions of banking and insurance operations remained at the level of the previous nine months.

Less successful, however, are the results of smaller commercial banks in Greece. Postbank registered 53.09 million euros loss in the first nine months of the year. The loss of Attica Bank after taxes is 3.9 million euros for the same period. The bank registered profit of 8.9 million euros for the nine months of 2009. On top of the wave, however, remained Piraeus Bank, which reported  41 million euros profit after tax to September inclusive. The impact of the economic crisis in Greece remains strong comparing the last year results when the after tax profit of Piraeus for the nine months of 2009 was 219 million euros.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Greece announced that state guarantees amounting to 25 billion euros are effective, which will allow distressed banks to fund through the program. There are between three to four billion euros for the four largest commercial banks in Greece and these funds are targeted to increase liquidity in the market. This became clear at a meeting of the Governor of the Bank of Greece George Provopoulos with the Union of Greek Banks in the presence of the Finance Minister George Papakonstantinou.