NPES

Hellenic Bank, Cyprus' second-largest lender, has reported a profit of 69.7 million euros for the first quarter of 2023, signaling a strong start to the year.

Greek banks achieved a remarkable reduction in their nonperforming exposures in the first nine months of the year, despite the tough conditions of Covid-19, showing their resilience before moves for the substantial streamlining of their financial balances scheduled up to the first half of 2021.

National Bank (NBG), one of Greece's four largest lenders, on Monday reported higher third-quarter net profit compared to the second quarter on stronger fee and net interest income.

NBG, 40% owned by the country's HFSF bank rescue fund, said net profit from continued operations reached 137 million euros, versus net earnings of €58 million in the second quarter.

Eurobank has moved ahead of Greek peers in the drive to cut bad loan volumes after completing a deal with Italian debt recovery firm doValue, and is now focused on boosting lending, its chief executive told Reuters on Tuesday.

Piraeus Bank grew full-year 2019 net profit, helped by lower operating costs and higher net interest income, Greece's largest lender by assets said on Monday.
Piraeus Bank, which is 26.2 percent owned by the country's HFSF bank rescue fund, reported a net profit of 270 million euros after net earnings of 185 million in 2018.

Greek banks' 2020 reduction target for nonperforming loans is about to be revised, due to the extraordinary conditions and the major uncertainty caused by the coronavirus epidemic, Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras noted in a report published on Friday.

Greece's third-largest lender Eurobank on Thursday reported higher full-year 2019 net profit compared to a year earlier as provisions for impaired loans eased.

Eurobank, which is 2.4 percent owned by the country's HFSF bank rescue fund, reported net earnings of 127 million euros ($140.86 million), up 36.2 percent from 93 million euros in 2018.

Pau Labro Vila, Director of Financial Institutions at Fitch Ratings, told Kathimerini that nonperforming exposures of Greek banks will continue to decline to reach 25 percent by year-end, leading also to an improvement in the credit sector's profitability. However Fitch sees execution risks to banks' plans for the drop in the NPE rate to single digits in the coming years.
 

Eurobank subsidiary FPS is set to evolve into one of the biggest companies in its domain in Greece - with a role in the broader market of Southeastern Europe too - now that Italy's doValue, a member of the Fortress Group, has secured an 80 percent stake in the bad-loan management firm.

The state's asset protection plan, dubbed Hercules, will render securitizations a more attractive instrument for the reduction of nonperforming exposures (NPEs) of Greek banks, Morgan Stanley says in a new report, while Germany's Scope Ratings notes that securitization conditions in Greece are improving.