A critical bet for the country’s economic growth is undoubtedly the credit expansion of banks.
The second quarter is considered equally crucial in terms of whether the banks’ ambitious goals included in their initial business plans will ultimately be achieved.
As the banks’ financial results for the first half of the year are expected in approximately 10 days, it is recalled that in the first quarter results, the credit expansion of the four systemic banks amounted to 3.2 billion euros, while for 2025, the banks’ current goals reach almost 11 billion euros.
According to information from “N”, banks are optimistic about achieving their annual targets, with credit expansion not being ruled out to eventually reach approximately 12 billion euros by the end of the year.
However, as credit expansion has been so dynamic since the first quarter, a “brake” in the following quarters or in one of them, according to the latest forecasts, would not be surprising.
As economic analysts have stated in “N”, the loans on which the credit expansion of banks is based in the last 3 years come from abroad and especially from the EU Resilience and Recovery Facility (RFF) and therefore the credit expansion of banks goes in parallel with the disbursements of resources from the Recovery Fund.
According to the Bank of Greece, after the approval by the European Commission of the updated National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the total available investment resources reach 36 billion euros, including 18.3 billion euros in subsidies and 17.7 billion euros in loans, while after the disbursement of the 5th installment of the RRF funds to Greece, the total inflow of loan funds amounts to 11.4 billion euros.
