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Various reasons have been presented in the public why the National Bank of Greece will not merge with Alpha Bank. The Greek edition Imerisia presented five others, different from the widespread ones that are supposed to underpin the broken engagement between the two commercial banks.
 
The first reason stated is the staff problem that would occur after the merger. National Bank of Greece has about 36,500 employees and Alpha Bank - 15,300. After the merger of the two institutions the total number of employees will exceed 51,000 people, and many positions will be duplicated, making redundancies inevitable. At best, 10% of the staff of the new bank would be excessive or about five thousand people will remain on the street. Alfa Bank fears that its employees will be swept away first after the reform. Thus, 30% of Alpha employees are threatened to become unemployed in 2011, as the National Bank of Greece as a buyer has the advantage in making decisions.

The second reason is that the state will continue to play a role in the new scheme. Many local publications speak of "nationalization" of Alfa Bank. Mostly because the state or its current government nominates the governor of the National Bank of Greece, although it holds a negligible share of it.

The next reason is quite a paradox and beyond any logic. It is actually not a question of nationalization, as alleged in the second reason, but to privatize the National Bank of Greece. If objectively considered the volumes of the two banks, the Alpha take over from the National Bank is the most realistic in terms of strategy and chemistry between the two organizations. Of all the possible combinations of potential mergers only the combination of National Bank and Alfa is feasible for now.

The fourth reason lies in the evaluation of the both banks portfolios and the value of government securities they hold. The exchange rate of 8 to 11 corresponds to 0.727 of National Bank shares for each share of Alpha. The problem is how to evaluate the total assets of the new organization, because the portfolio of the National Bank of Greece contains a much larger volume of government securities than Alpha’s.

International accounting standards offer different evaluation methods, but in fact there is no objective way to calculate the value of government bonds in the commercial banks. On the one hand, the value of the bonds at the time they were purchased could be taken. On the other, their current value which is much lower than the initial. It can not be excluded that the bonds can be assessed under the threat of an impending haircut in the range of 20% -30% or even more, depending on developments in the country. Even worse are the prospects the government bonds held by the National Bank to be rated as junk bonds of a bankrupt country and to be of no value.

The correct evaluation of government bonds today is doomed from the outset because they are not traded in free capital markets and are accepted at regulated, not market prices only by the European Central Bank. Their value depends directly on the macroeconomic situation in Greece, making their evaluation subjective.

The fifth reason is the low price offered to Alfa Bank. Growth prospects of Greek banks are bleak. The Athens Stock Exchange works at very low levels, which largely determines the low levels of the shares, traded on it. Alpha Bank as well as all other commercial banks in the country are seriously affected by the lack of access to free markets which is reducing their profitability seriously. Scenarios in the banking sector won’t be certain until a light in the tunnel of the Greek crisis is seen.  

There's a sixth reason for the broken wedding between the National Bank of Greece and Alpha Bank. And it is that we have already seen this film. This is the second consecutive unfulfilled merger between the two banks. Well, if you go to church to be married to someone and he or she lets you down at the last minute, you would hardly think to become a part of such an event. No matter that your relatives (in our case the government, Provopoulos, IMF) tell you that it is high time to get married. In other words, the National Bank of Greece and Alpha Bank have nothing so attractive to offer each other so that to cast everything aside and say: "We agree."