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Four Greek banks are entering the "Grey list" of the international financial house Merrill Lynch. The serious financial problems of Greece have led international analysts to rank the names of some of the largest financial institutions in the country on third place. The levels are divided into category A, category B, Grey List, Watchlist (List under surveillance). How stable the foundations of the financial organizations are is a main criterion for classification in different the categories.

Merrill Lynch experts are seriously worried about the financial situation of the country. The negative economic growth, high state deficit and the increasing national debt are serious reasons for concern, but financial analysts remain optimistic and say: "We continue to believe that the concerns (for bankruptcy in Greece) are exaggerated. The country will not declare bankruptcy.”

Regarding the National Bank foreign experts claim that it is the leader on the market. Noted as a positive thing is the recent capital increase of the commercial bank, which is managed with state participation. The difficult economic situation also determines the high macroeconomic risk of the country and will affect the National Bank of Greece. Merrill Lynch experts claim that Eurobank is famous for having high level of administration and has been maintaining good profitability in the past. According to international financial analysts the main problem of Eurobank lies in the quality of the bank's assets, and the high number of non-served loans. 

After increasing the share capital of Alpha Bank with €1 billion, Merrill Lynch analysts believe it to be one of the most stable financial institutions in Greece. According to them, even if the number of non-served loans doubled, the commercial bank will still be profitable. The financial professionals assess as risk markets Romania and Cyprus, where Alpha Bank also has offices. Regarding Piraeus Bank the financial analysts note as positive the improvement of regulatory capital, which guarantees the maintenance of high profits in the following three months. 

Finally, the evaluation of the different financial institutions is directly dependent on the stability of the economic environment in which they operate. The foggy economic platform of the new PASOK government and the lack of confidence in the authenticity of the Greek statistics are only part of the problems that international evaluation houses take into consideration when ranking commercial banks. Right now the Greek public and the foreign markets are expecting the Program for stability and development, which will lay the path to economic stability in the next three years.