Eurobank Ergasias

ATHEX: Fresh climb for Greek bourse benchmark

Stocks in Athens resisted pressures and continued their upward trajectory on Monday, with banks getting the credit for grabbing investors' attention and leading the benchmark higher, although turnover remained below the 50-million-euro mark. Traders appear to be pricing in a likely Greek credit rating upgrade this Friday by Standard & Poor's.

National, Alpha’s Q1 results show rise in profits, efforts to clear NPLs

National and Alpha, two of Greece's top banks, alongside Piraeus and Eurobank, continued their bid to rid themselves of their bad loans, half-year results revealed on Thursday. Both banks' efforts to repair their balance sheets resulted in significantly improved profits.

Bank bond issues look likely

All four major Greek banks are expected, sooner rather than later, to issue Tier 2 bonds, even those which have already done so.
The total value of the bonds will depend on the Single Supervisory Mechanism's setting of Tier 1 capital requirements at the end of the year, but is estimated to come to 2.5 billion euros, including nearly a billion each for Alpha and Piraeus.

A turbulent 20 years for Greek banks

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).

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