There is no reason to believe that Greek banks will need further recapitalization, after the latest round provided them with 14.4 billion euros (US$16.2 billion) of funding, the head of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) supervisory agency was quoted as saying on Saturday.
“The capital plans have been fulfilled, so there is no need for additional capital requirements. We are in good shape in that respect,” Daniele Nouy, who chairs the Single Supervisory Mechanism, told the Greek newspaper Agora.
Nouy said Greek banks would be excluded from the ECB’s stress tests this year, since they had already gone through “rigorous” health check last year.
The ECB carried out an asset-quality review and stress tests of the four biggest Greek banks in October last year, after they were weakened by political instability, a loss of deposits and the imposition of capital controls the previous July, which remain in force.
She called on the banks to use “all available tools” to tackle bad loans, including selling them.
“All possibilities should be examined as we have a wide variety of situations,” she said.
The Bank of Greece, which supervises a 9.5 billion euro portfolio of 14 bad banks after a wave a consolidation, has so far managed to recover 800 million euros of low-quality loans.
Separately, Greek farmers protesting planned tax hikes and pension changes have left a central Athens square where they had been camped out since Friday, but are vowing to keep protesting until the government listens.
The farmers, who had set up 68 blockades with tractors and agricultural vehicles on highways across Greece, are to convene today to decide how to proceed, farmers’ representative Vangelis Boutas said.
He said they also want measures to lower production costs, such as tax-free diesel, cheaper electricity and no value-added tax on supplies.
Police earlier on Saturday estimated that 12,000 protesters marched to Athens’ Syntagma Square outside parliament to support the farmers. The march was called by unions allied with Greece’s Communist Party.
Additional reporting by AP
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