Greek banks don’t need further recapitalisation: ECB
(15 January 2016 – Greece) There is no reason to believe that Greek banks will need further recapitalisation, following latest round provided them with €14.4 billion (A$22.8 billion) of funding, the head of the European Central Bank's (ECB) supervisory agency said over the weekend.
Speaking to a Greek newspaper, Daniele Nouy, who chairs the Single Supervisory Mechanism, said "The capital plans have been fulfilled, so there is no need for additional capital requirements. We are in good shape in that respect.”
Nouy added that Greek banks would be excluded from the ECB's stress tests this year, having been subjected to "rigorous" checks in 2015.
The central bank carried out an asset-quality review and stress tests of the four biggest Greek banks in October, after political and economic instability, a loss of deposits and the imposition of capital controls in July.
Nouv 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 portfolio of 14 bad banks after a wave of consolidation, has so far managed to recover €800 million of low-quality loans.
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