European Central Bank

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank is meeting on Wednesday and Thursday at the Bank of Greece, for the first time since 2008.

Its president, Christine Lagarde (pictured), has had the opportunity to get a taste of Athens and the Greeks in a different climate than what prevailed during the difficult years of the debt crisis.

For the first time in over a year, European Central Bank (ECB) policymakers are expected to decide against raising interest rates again when they gather in Athens on Oct. 26.

Once red-hot, inflation, driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, has started to ease, while the outlook for the economy has worsened.

Goldman Sachs expects Greek banks to show strong results in the third quarter of the year as well, following the trend of the second quarter, with further strengthening of net interest income, which will be supported by the 50-basis point increase in interest rates, to which it is estimated that the European Central Bank will have progressed in the specific period.

The digital euro is "cash" that is stored and used for payments on a smartphone, as opposed to using a credit card, bank transfer, or paper and coins. The European Central Bank (ECB) hopes to introduce the digital euro in 2026.

Over the past year, the "big four" Greek banks - Alpha, Eurobank, National and Piraeus - have repaid €31.1 billion of the €50.9 billion they had drawn from the Eurosystem, that is, the European Central Bank and the central banks of the 20 eurozone countries, in the form of loans at favorable interest rates.

The European Central Bank's latest Economic Bulletin, published Thursday, begins thus: "Inflation continues to decline but is still expected to remain too high for too long." This is a worrying statement, including for Greece, whose inflation may be lower than the eurozone average, but whose annual pace jumped from 1.8% in June to 2.5% in July, ending nine successive months of decline.

The European Central Bank reduced its Greek bond holdings by €172 million in June and July, to €37.979 billion, €1.82 billion from its spring 2022 high of €39.8 billion.

The ECB had purchased these bonds as part of its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP) despite the fact that Greek debt was, and still is not, investment grade.

Greek bond yields have fallen fast and currently the 2- and 10-year-bonds are trading at around the European average, 3.31% and 3.8% respectively.

Since the European Central Bank (ECB) started raising its rates to fight inflation, Greek borrowing costs have dropped by almost 10%, even as other eurozone members have seen their own inching upward.

The European Central Bank (ECB) could hike interest rates again or pause at its next meeting and any decision will depend on the latest data, president Christine Lagarde has said.

The central bank for the 20 countries that use the euro lifted borrowing costs for the ninth consecutive time on July 28 as it fights stubbornly high inflation.

Two European Central Bank policymakers on Friday raised the prospect of an end to the ECB's steepest and longest string of interest rate rises, as the outlook for the eurozone economy worsened despite stubbornly high inflation.

The ECB increased borrowing costs for a ninth consecutive time on Thursday but raised the possibility of a pause in September as recession worries mount.