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In a letter to the president of the Greek Parliament, Zoi Konstantopoulou, PASOK MP Odysseas Konstandinopoulos urged his colleagues to return their deposits from foreign banks to Greek ones.

In his letter entitled "Returning to Greek banks overseas deposits of cabinet members, directors of major departments and MPs", Mr Konstandinopoulos argues: "Apart from the European Central Bank, it is necessary that we, all the Greeks, contribute to the stability of our banking system by returning to our banks all the money exported overseas in recent years."

According to Konstandinopoulos, this action is a ‘sublime patriotic duty’ of the Greek MPs, which would set a positive example for the members of the public.

(You can read the interview of Odysseas Konstandinopoulos for GRReporter taken after the formation of the New Democracy-PASOK-Democratic Left coalition after the June 2012 elections.)

Meanwhile, the shares of Greek banks on the Athens Stock Exchange continued to report losses. Analysts say one of the reasons for this was Moody's negative report, according to which depositor confidence will be slow to return. Besides, investors are awaiting eventual developments around the ECB liquidity boost to Greek banks.

This is what the four top Greek banks’ shares are like:

Piraeus Bank - €0.5260, a 7.39% loss;

National Bank of Greece - €1.27, a 5.22% loss;

Alpha Bank - €0.35, a 5.41% loss;

Eurobank - €0.13, a 5.11% loss.

At the same time, the question of the new management of the largest commercial bank of Greece is still open after the ECB rejected the candidacy of Georgios Michelis as CEO. Louka Katseli as future board chair has successfully passed the test of ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism, but her appointment will only take place if the CEO is an experienced banker.

According to the economic publication euro2day.gr, the government is discussing two basic scenarios in their attempts to find a suitable candidate for a CEO of the National Bank of Greece. One is to promote a member of its current management, another is to find a suitable appointee from another bank.

The publication claims that candidates are being sifted among former top staffers of other banks and even of the National Bank itself. None of them, however, has responded positively, and in some cases, the government has withdrawn its interest.

The option was also discussed that the National Bank be taken by its current management to the next annual assembly, which will elect the new CEO.

But this option is considered problematic for two reasons: on the one hand there is the negative performance of the government, and on the other the fact that one of the four major banks will continue to be managed by people who filed in their resignations after being prompted by the cabinet.

According to sources, if a senior banker expresses interest in taking office, the change will probably take place at the bank's annual meeting. Another option discussed by the cabinet is that the post be filled by a Greek who successfully managed some foreign bank. The counter-argument is that any such figure will first of all have to adapt to the stressful Greek financial realities.