Moody's: Greek banks repayment of emergency funding a credit positive

Greek banks' full repayment of emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) drawn from the domestic central bank is credit positive as it reduces their funding costs, ratings agency Moody's said in a credit outlook report on Thursday.
Greek banks' outstanding ELA balance was around 1.0 billion euros ($1.1 billion) at the end of December, or about 0.4 percent of the banking system's total assets, down sharply from a peak of 86.8 billion reached in June 2015 at the height of the debt crisis.

Deleveraging, coupled with the gradual return of deposits, helped banks improve their funding profile, allowing them to fully repay the emergency funds they borrowed from the Bank of Greece over the past three and half years.
"Without their dependence on ELA and given the sustainable improvement in liquidity conditions, Greek banks will likely attract greater interest from international...