Property price growth can help banks achieve NPE reduction targets

The key condition for banks to hit their targets for reducing nonperforming exposures is that property prices continue to climb, according to the National Bank's chief executive officer, Pavlos Mylonas.

He was speaking at the Capital+Vision conference, organized by the German-Greek Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in Athens on Monday.

Mylonas expressed confidence that the country's lenders will manage to reduce their NPEs below 20 percent of their loan portfolios by end-2021, noting that the rise in property prices is an integral part of the solution as they improve the prospects of mortgage loans, the hardest part of NPEs.