Greek banks will be able to face challenges to profitability from the coronavirus crisis with the help of increased funding from the European Central Bank (ECB), said the credit rating agency Moody’s.

According to its latest credit outlook report, Moody’s expects Greek banks’ profitability to weaken as coronavirus-related market disruption shrinks quality lending opportunities and erodes fee and commission income, mainly due to fewer disbursements of new loans.

The ECB’s move in April to accept Greek government bonds as eligible loan collateral, despite their ‘B1-stable’ non-investment-grade rating, led to a steep rise in Greek banks’ ECB borrowing, Moody’s said.

Greek banks increased their ECB funding to €21.5 bn in April, around 8% of Greece’s total banking assets, from €12.4 bn in March and €8.1 bn in December 2019.

The banks borrowed through the ECB’s longer-term refinancing operations mechanism (LTRO), offered to euro zone commercial banks at -0.5%.

“We believe that Greek banks’ increased ECB funding was concurrent with their reduced interbank repo funding, which was around €13.5 bn at year-end 2019,” Moody’s said, noting that repo costs had risen due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The -0.5% cost of funding via the ECB’s LTRO, along with increased private-sector deposit balances of around €145 bn as of March at a cost not higher than 0.14%, will support banks’ net interest margins and profitability, Moody’s said.

Moody’s expects net interest income and margins at the country’s large banks – Piraeus, National, Eurobank and Alpha – to remain under pressure from falling loan balances and very low interest rates.

“However, we expect limited deterioration since banks will continue to accrue interest despite government relief measures that suspend borrowers’ repayment of loan capital for six months,” Moody’s said.

Original Story: Reuters | George Georgiopoulos 
Photo: Photo by Jonte Remos from FreeImages.com
Edition: Prime Yield

National Bank (NBG) and Alpha, two of Greece’s largest lenders, increased provisions to cover anticipated loan impairments from the coronavirus crisis as they kicked off the first quarter earnings season for the sector on Thursday.

The coronavirus pandemic struck just as Greece’s banks were making headway in their bid to sell, write off or restructure billions of euros of bad debt accumulated during the last financial crisis.

The country’s economy is seen contracting by 6% this year, under the central bank’s baseline scenario, hit by restrictive measures to slow the spread of the virus, the global recession and an expected sharp drop in tourism.

The stock of non-performing loans (NPLs) declined by 16% last year but remained at a high 40% of gross loans, hampering banks’ ability to lend and finance economic recovery.

National Bank NBG, 40% owned by the country’s HFSF bank rescue fund, posted net profit from continued operations of €409 million in the first quarter, up sharply from €18 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 and boosted by gains in Greek government bonds.

Loan impairment provisions amounted to €486 million, up from €107 million in the fourth quarter, reflecting the full absorption of anticipated COVID-19 related lending losses.

Peer Alpha Bank, 11% owned by the HFSF, fell to a net loss from continuing operations of €10.9 million versus net earnings of €5.4 million in the previous quarter, due to higher loan impairment provisions and weaker trading income.

«We expect the €24 billion of stimulus measures, at 13% of GDP, to limit the recessionary impact of COVID-19 in 2020 and pave the way for a strong recovery in 2021,» the bank’s CEO Vassilis Psaltis said.

Alpha’s NPLs inched down to 30% of its loanbook from 30.1% in the fourth quarter.

National Bank’s ratio of non-performing exposures (NPEs), which includes NPLs and other credit likely to turn bad, fell to 30.9% of its loanbook from 31.3% in December.

The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will likely delay planned securitisations to shift legacy bad loans off balance sheets. In response to the crisis, Greek banks have introduced moratoria on debt payments to individuals and businesses that were performing before the outbreak. 

Original Story: Reuters | George Georgiopoulos 
Photo: Photo by Michalis Famelis / Wikimedia Commons
Edition: Prime Yield

There is strong competition among banks for participation in the Guarantee Fund for the provision of state-subsidized liquidity to Greek enterprises, with 14 lenders expressing an interest in response to the invitation published by the Hellenic Development Bank.

These banks are the four systemic ones (Alpha, National, Eurobank and Piraeus), Attica, Optima, Procredit, six cooperative lenders (Epirus, Pancretan, Thessalia, Karditsa, Central Macedonia and Hania), as well as British credit corporation Ebury.

Such is the competition for the state-backed credit that the amount of loans for which banks have submitted offers added up to €8.5 bn, while the sum of the credit with the contribution of banks has been calculated at €7 bn. Sources say the four systemic lenders have submitted demands for loans totaling over €1.5 bn each, thereby laying claim to over €6 bn between them from the liquidity to be channeled to the economy with a strict timetable up to the end of the year.

According to the announcement by the Hellenic Development Bank, the amount of €7 bn to be handed out in the form of working capital to all companies regardless of whether they have been hurt by the pandemic will be distributed among banks based on each lender’s share in the financing of small, medium-sized and large corporations.

The increased competition among lenders is also indicative of the high interest among the enterprises themselves, which anticipate the activation of the fund to bring some cash into the economy and go some way toward tackling the general recession caused by the pandemic.

The Hellenic Development Bank has already announced that is examining the applications submitted for the determination and signing of contract terms with the commercial banks. The contracts will determine the conditions of the state guarantee to maximize the benefit and minimize the cost of funding for the corporations to get loans from the banks. All companies operating in Greece are eligible for the loans providing they were not deemed problematic before January 1, 2020, are considered solvent and serviced their debts up to end-December.

Original Story: Ekathimerini | Evgenia Tzortzi 
Photo: Site Alpha Bank
Edition: Prime Yield

Eurobank has become the first Greek lender to make use of the government’s Hercules scheme to reduce nonperforming loans after gaining finance ministry approval for state guarantees on senior tranches of its Cairo I and II debt securitisations.

Greek banks have been working to reduce €75 bn of bad loans that resulted from the last financial crisis, which shrank the country’s economy by a quarter.

The Cairo programme consists of three securitisations that together amount to €7.5 bn and will help Eurobank to reduce its ratio of so-called non-performing exposures (NPEs) to 15% in the first quarter.

Shedding the bad debt is crucial for Greek banks’ ability to lend and shore up profits. The Hercules scheme (HAPS) was put in place to help the banks to offload up to €30 bn in bad loans.

The Greek state’s guarantee on the senior notes amounts to about €2.4 bn. 

Original Story: Ekathimerini | News/ Reuters 
Photo: Eurobank website
Edition: Prime Yield