Cheaper borrowing from ECB to Greek banks

The reduction of exposure of Greek banks in the ELA system causes reversal of their financing, as it is decreased by 70.4 billion euros to just 31.4 billion in January. It was superseded by funding from the European Central Bank that respectively rose by 56 billion to 76.2 billion euros in the same month. This means a gain of about 2%, as the funding of ELA has a cost of about 3%, while that of ECB tends to be less than 1%.

On the same wavelength, the overall exposure of the Greek banking system in financing the Eurosystem fell by 13.5 billion to 107.6 billion euros in the same period. This means that Greek banks significantly enhance their access to financing and improvement of their abilities in a very short time.

The capital increases for Alpha and Piraeus banks have been completed in terms of preparation, but also the fact that large funds are interested in participating in the growth of the National Bank demonstrates that the process of recapitalization is likely to be finished by June.

Bankers say they are ready to inject liquidity into investments that meet quality criteria and believe that the recovery in credit growth, which for three years has been on a negative rate, will depend on the investment climate and demand for loans.