The Hellenic Banking Association (HBA) on Friday released an extensive study focusing on Greece’s crisis-battered banking sector, a year and a half after capital controls were first imposed in the country.
HBA points to the international credit institution crisis but primarily to the Greek economic crisis as causing an “in-depth restructuring of the domestic banking system, with a subsequent drastic reduction in the number of banks active in Greece”.
According to the figures supplied by HBA, between December 2007 to the end of 2016, the number of credit institutions of all types active in the country dropped from 64 to 39, with all foreign banks terminating their retail operation, except for HSBC.
As of late 2016 Greece’s four systemic banks — National Bank, Alpha, Piraeus and Eurobank — along with non-systemic Attica Bank controlled 95 percent of the domestic market, in terms of assets, dramatically up from 67.7 percent in 2007.
Beyond the “4+1” group, others with a presence in the country include Investment Bank of Greece (IBG), Aegean Baltic Bank, Credicom Consumer Finance, nine cooperative banks, along with the representation offices of foreign banks, such as Citibank, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Unicredit, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, DnB Bank ASA, and ABN AMRO Bank.
The most profound finding is the dramatic reduction of assets by Greek banks, which have been battered by deleveraging and the sale of holdings and assets, especially fleeting deposits, developments directly linked with the crisis and economic uncertainty.
Indicatively, total assets dropped from 358.1 billion euros in 2008 to 312.4 billion euros; total deposits stood at 132.1 billion euros.
Deposits held by households and businesses reached 121.4 in 2016, down from 227.6 billion euros in 2008.
Lending to households and businesses stood at 195.2 billion euros, while CET 1 was 18.1 percent.
Bank branches in Greece numbered 2,343 and 6,820 ATMs: the related work force was 46,615 employees.
On a more ominous note, HBA calculated NPEs at 107.6 billion euros (45.2 percent), and NPLs at 38 percent of the total.
