Fourteen companies approved in debt management sector

Fourteen companies are now licensed by the Bank of Greece to operate in the domestic debt management sector, after the approval on Tuesday of applications from LPN Capital and Melfin. The intense interest seen over the past two years stems from the acceleration of sales to specialized companies of large portfolios of bad loans.

Loan sales are key in reducing banks' share of non-performing exposures (NPEs) ahead of the new targets that lenders must submit to the European Central Bank's Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in September.

The new targets will focus on more frontloaded sales to reduce the share of bad loans on their balance sheets to the European average of less than 10 percent by 2021 from a current level of 45 percent - by far the worst among eurozone banks.

Banks are committed to making massive portfolio sales and so far, five packages worth about 16...