Fees earn local banks €1.8 billion
About three-fifths of Greek banks’ commissions come from loan issues, payments and card transactions, which increased by 17.5% in the last two years.
Total fee income in 2023 amounted to 1.8 billion euros from €1.6 billion in 2021, while another €477 million was the fee income of the four systemic banks in the first quarter of 2024, which is steadily strengthening due to the increase in electronic transactions and lending, mainly from the business portfolio.
Revenues from asset management have also shown a steady increase over the last year-and-a-half, because by taking advantage of the positive climate in the markets, banks are expanding their presence in wealth management products compared to simple deposits.
Revenue from card transactions is shaping up to be a steady source of profitability, despite the fact that banks have sold the business of accepting cards – i.e. the management of POS terminals – to third-party providers.
The commission revenues of Greek banks last year represented 16.18% of their organic revenues and the trend is to increase this to approach the European Union average, which reached 28.1% in 2023.
