Galery

1

Redesign scenarios of the Greek banking market continue in mid-summer, as rumours of a merger of the National Bank of Greece (NBG) with Eurobank and Alpha recently have become the most persistent. The Greek edition Imerisia explores this possibility, calling such a merger “formation of a national champion” among local banks. At the same time, different bank coryphaeus of the highest level, like the Chief Executive Officer of the Greek Eurobank Nikos Nanopoulos, visit and leave the office of the Financial Minister George Papakonstantinou, with no announcement of the purpose or results of the meetings.

Although the government openly declared its support for the reconstruction of the already padded banking market, it still refrains from taking a specific position on how it sees the future banking system in the country. “We explore all possible scenarios,” said George Papakonstantinou more than a week ago, hours before the stress tests results of the European banks. This statement did not clarify whether the government will keep or sell the state share in banks in the country. The offer of Piraeus Bank to buy the state Postbank and Agricultural Bank paved the way for reform of the banking market. Experts have estimated years ago that “Greece has room for two banks and a half.”

Some banking experts examine the probability the National Bank of Greece to merge with one of the still state-owned banks (Agricultural, Post or Savings) thus increasing the direct state share in the NBG, which now amounts to only 0.06%. Imerisia’s experts do not exclude the possibility that foreign banks could be interested to participate in the capital increase of the National Bank of Greece as this will gain them a larger share of the Greek market. The Turkish edition Sabah announced in the middle of the last week that Ziraat Bank was interested in purchasing the Greek ATEbank (Agricultural Bank). The representatives of the Turkish bank, which has branches in Athens and Komotini, denied the publication a day later. Scenarios for different interests continued last week with the release of the Dutch ING's desire to purchase a share of the Greek Marfin Popular Bank at the price of 2.2 euros per share. It was all rumours as they said from Marfin they did not know anything about it. And ING did not even trouble to comment on what happened.

Kathimerini Newspaper evaluated the outcome of the last week scenarios as successful boosters of the Athens Stock Exchange. The real issue with banking reform remains. Five major local banks hold 69.7 percent of total bank deposits and 68.1 percent of bank loans so far. Assuming that Piraeus Bank bought ATEbank and Postbank, then the five largest banks in the country will hold about 80% of deposits and loans in Greece.

According to the chairman of the Institute for Trade and Industrial Research Yannis Sturnaras Greece should take care to attract more foreign banks in the process of economic reform in the country, because their presence can be a catalyst for confidence in international markets. “The participation of major international banks in equity (of local ones) will recover more quickly the confidence lost lately and will facilitate our access to international markets to increase liquidity in the country,” said Sturnaras during a meeting to evaluate the first nine months of the PASOK government, organized by the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce.