BANKS

The European Commission has found Greek plans aimed at supporting the reduction of non-performing loans of Greek banks to be free of any State aid. The Commission found that, under the asset protection scheme (known by the name of “Hercules”), the Greek State will be remunerated in line with market conditions for the risk it will assume by granting a guarantee on securitised non-performing loans.

A number of fund managers believed recently that Greek banks had turned the corner and started building positions in the sector. But most of them now looking over their portfolios in disappointment, realizing that there is a massive gap between preparing a proposal that will improve the balance sheets of lenders and implementing it. What did go wrong.

Eurobank, Greece's third-largest lender, is holding talks exclusively with US fund manager Pimco on the sale of its Financial Planning Services (FPS) unit, sources tell Business Daily, ruling out negotiations with any other potential buyer. The deal relates to Eurobank's FPS unit, the lender's loan recovery business, and includes its Cairo portfolio of sour debt worth 7.4 billion euros.

Greece's Finance Minister Christos Staikouras is scheduled to meet on Thursday afternoon with the heads of the country's banks to discuss the Hercules bad loan plan in a bid to secure the highest participation from lenders and reduce the risk of fresh uncertainty hitting the sector. The meeting comes after a report from Business Daily showing that the technical details of the plan submitted by Greece to the European Commission have not been approved by the European Central Bank's Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM).

Greek banks are closely watching developments regarding the plan that has been prepared by Deputy Finance Minister George Zavvos. It is seen getting the green light from the European Commission but will not be able to be implemented due to many technical difficulties.