Double interest rate margin

The fact that the interest rate margin in Greece has been double the European average supports the high profitability of the country's four systemic banks, which in the first nine months of 2023 amounted to 2.8 billion euros out of a total of €131.1 billion which was the total profitability of the 109 systemic banks supervised by the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) of the European Central Bank.

The interest margin in Greece amounted to 3.20% compared to 1.56% which is the average for European banks, with the lowest levels of interest margin displayed by banks in France (0.89%), Germany (1.13%), Belgium (1.51%) and the Netherlands (1.56%), while the interest margin in Portugal stood at 3.16% and in Spain at 2.63%.

This is confirmed by the data analysis carried out by the Hellenic Bank Association based on the consolidated data published by the SSM. The high interest...