Banks

Citigroup has affirmed its neutral stance on the Greek credit sector after the publication of local banks' second-quarter financial results, thereby making no change to the target prices it had announced in its previous report in early August.

The full lifting of capital controls, expected next month, could come within days or even hours, amid growing confidence about the country's increasing stability, Kathimerini understands. 

Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras had recommended that the final restrictions be lifted after observing a continuing increase in bank deposits. 

Bank of China will open a branch in Greece by the end of the year, the bank's head of European operations, Zhou Lihong, said on Wednesday in Athens, during a meeting with Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy Kostas Fragogiannis.

The European Commission is reportedly looking for ways to include returns from European central banks' profits from Greek bonds they bought through the Securities Market Program (SMP) and the Agreement on Net Financial Assets (ANFA) as budget revenue.

China's central bank has unveiled a key interest rate reform to help steer borrowing costs lower for companies and support a slowing economy that has been hurt by a trade war with the United States.

The case filed by the State Oman Reserve Fund against the Bulgarian state over the bankruptcy of Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB) has been finalized, the finance ministry said. The foreign fund, which was a shareholder in the bank, claimed compensation for the refusal of the Bulgarian authorities to try to save it. Back in the spring, the Omani gave up their claim.

The Greek banking system has radically changed over the past two decades. Mergers and acquisitions had already begun in the late 1980s, but it was two significant events 20 years ago that marked the beginning of a process that has led to the consolidation of the country's banking sector in the dominant "big four" (Alpha Bank, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece and Piraeus Bank).

Greek analysts are concerned by foreign funds increasingly going short on Greek banks over the last month.
The trend became apparent in July and is based on debt rating firms' repeated warnings that the banking sector, with its nonperforming loans, remains one of the main drags on the economy.

Greece's central bank has recommended to the government that it fully dismantle capital controls in September or October, a bold move to swiftly reverse emergency steps taken four years ago to protect the country's banks during its financial crisis.

The Bank  of Greece (BoG) is, along with the Bank of England (BoE) and the European Central Bank  (ECB), at the forefront of the battle to tackle climate change through the promotion of sustainable finance, according to the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF).