Bank

 Social security funds reluctant to help out

By Sotiris Nikas & Roula Salourou

The government has called on major public corporations, including utilities, to invest their cash reserves in state debt, along the lines of the proposal made to social security funds and other state entities.

By Dimitra Manifava

The government is making medium-term plans for the creation of a development bank whose exclusive function will be the funding of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and youth entrepreneurship, Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis announced on Monday.

 Gov?t hopes to draw up to 2 bln euros from state entity reserves

By Sotiris Nikas

Turkish Islamic lender Bank Asya, whose management was taken over by regulators earlier this year, swung to a net loss of 877 million liras ($336 million) in 2014 on shrinking loans and deposits.

The bank, in which Turkish banking regulators seized a small stake last week over an alleged illegal share sale, had reported a net profit of 180.6 million liras in 2013.

By Yiannis Papadoyiannis

Brussels plans to send a senior competition official to Greece later this month to meet with the heads of the country?s commercial banks and check on the progress of the lenders? restructuring plans.

By Yiannis Papadoyiannis

Greek banks are struggling to stay alive, according to observers, as the flight of deposits and their only marginal replacement by liquidity supplied from the Eurosystem are not allowing the local credit sector anything more than the mere serving of cash flow needs.

BELGRADE - Serbia has a problem with a high share of non-performing loans - 22.5 percent of the entire loan portfolio, Governor of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Jorgovanka Tabakovic has said, pointing out that the NBS cannot be solving this problem alone, and needs support from the ministries and international financial institutions.

The Central Bank of Bahrain has granted a license to Turkish Islamic lender Turkey Finans to open a branch in Bahrain, the bank said in a written statement on March 4.

Turkey?s banking watchdog (BDDK) said yesterday regulators have taken control of a small stake in embattled Islamic lender Bank Asya over what it described as an illegal share transaction.

Turkey's third-largest state-run bank Vak?fbank received regulatory approval yesterday from banking watchdog BDDK to establish an Islamic banking division, the Official Gazette has announced.

The bank will need to own a capital of $300 million.

With the approval, the bank has nine months to establish its banking unit according to Turkish law.