SSM ‘unhappy’ with gov’t practices
The European Central Bank’s supervisory chief met with a series of Greek officials on Monday, the first day of a two-visit to Athens, while sources spoke of discontent in Frankfurt over the government’s policy on the recapitalization of the country’s non-systemic banks.
Daniele Nouy, chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), met on Monday with Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras and the managers of the four core lenders, while on Tuesday she will hold meetings with BoG monitoring officials and the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund.
Talks focused on Monday on the state of the banks following their recap, governance issues and the management of nonperforming loans. Sources say the SSM is unhappy with the strategy the government has followed in the capital increase of the non-core banks such as Attica Bank, and has strongly criticized unorthodox practices.
Nouy’s visit had been scheduled for some time, and, as banking sources stress, had the government stuck to the bailout program’s timetable, Nouy would have been talking now about accepting Greek bonds as collateral for liquidity.
