Photo: Madata
After a short summer vacation rumors of another bank merger in Greece began to rise again, and this time more and more often people talk about a possible alliance between Εurobank and Alpha Bank. After expansion of the economic crisis and the significant shrinkage of the market, as well as the increasingly difficult borrowing from international markets, the liquidity of the banks started to decline. This proved the recent confession of the President of the Union of Greek Banks and president of the National Bank of Greece Vassilis Rapanos that banks no longer have liquid funds to cover the needs of the Greek business.
In the past few days, the Greek media constantly write about how the Minister of Finance Giorgos Papakonstantinou has met both with the President of Alpha Bank George Costopoulos and with the Executive Director of Εurobank Nicholas Nanopoulos. Nevertheless, employees from the central offices of both banks denied the formal discussion on the issue of a possible merger. Experts on the market, however, comment that these rumors will probably prove to be true because of the fact that after the merger of Alpha Bank Εurobank a powerful financial institution will be created, which will be resilient to economic ups and downs and will surpass in size the most powerful private bank in the country - the National Bank of Greece. Pessimistic people from the banking circles comment that such a merger, however, may not be the right strategy to deal with problems such as lack of liquidity and endangered capital adequacy.
In an analysis of the Greek publication Zougla is written that the assets of the new super bank will amount to 177 billion euros, out of which 110 billion will be in loans and 83 billion euros in deposits. The user network will have 2,600 offices throughout the country and staff will exceed 36 thousand people. The newly established Bank after the potential merger of Εurobank and Alpha Bank will overcome in size and strength the present leader - the National Bank of Greece, which holds assets at the amount of 122 billion euros, 75 billion euros in loans and 68 billion euros in deposits. Its customer service network numbers 1771 offices and its employees also exceed 36,000 people.
The restructuring of the banking system became the number one topic after the proposal of Piraeus Bank to buy the majority shares of the two state banks PostBank and the Agricultaral bank for approximately 700 million euros. The Government and in particular the Ministry of Finance took no official position on the specific proposal, but said it would consider all options for reorganization and improvement of the banking system in the country. Currently the the final report of the three major banking consultants HSBC Bank Plc, Deutsche Bank AG London Branch and Lazard Frères SAS, is still expected from which it will become clear to what extent the proposal of Piraeus Bank is profitable for the state. Foreign consultants will have an opinion on the issue of the merger of the Agricultural Bank of Greece with PostBank, the Savings Bank and Attica Bank. There will be reorganization of the banking system just the major players are still holding their cards closed.