ATHENS (AFP) ― The four biggest Greek banks received 18 billion euros ($22.6 billion) in rescue funds Monday to help reinforce their capital bases, a Hellenic financial stability fund source said.
“The order to pay the banks has been made, this completes the process,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The banks needed to recapitalize after they took hits as part of a deal to cut Greece’s privately-owned debt by 107 billion euros.
National Bank, the biggest Greek lender, has received 7.43 billion euros, Piraeus bank 4.7 billion, Eurobank 3.97 billion and Alpha 1.9 billion, the official said.
The payments came as the Athens stock exchange closed with a jump of 6.87 percent, but the fund official said the gain was probably linked to opinion polls which show that pro-reforms parties might be able to form a government following a June 17 general election.
“The payment is certainly a positive event but it had been considered as a certainty by the market. The jump is more likely linked to the poll,” the source said.
These sums were part of a 25-billion-euro envelope created to help Greek banks survive the sharp write down on Greek sovereign debt, a key element in a bigger international bailout package for Athens that was approved in March.
The funds were transferred from the European Financial Stability Fund to the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, a Greek body that is now charged with releasing them to Greek banks.
As part of the bank bailout package, Greece negotiated a huge exchange of government debt held by private creditors that included a write-off of roughly half the amount owed.
The restructuring caused big losses for private lenders, particularly Greek banks that held many of the government’s bonds and which have also been hurt by a steady drop in deposits over the past two years.
Private banks lost about 70 percent of the balance sheet value on their holdings of Greek government bonds.
