Bad loans to grow further this year

The situation with the excessive rate of bad loans will deteriorate further over the course of 2016, according to a report by Deloitte published on Wednesday, rising from 42 percent in early 2016 to 45 percent by the end of the year. This would constitute an 11 percent rise from March 2015.

Deloitte has found that, according to figures in end-2015, the four systemic lenders, which account for 95 percent of the Greek banking system, had in their portfolios underperforming or nonperforming loans adding up to 112 billion euros and representing 42 percent of all loans.

As a result of recent developments and the constant and growing pressure by the European Central Bank and its Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the four core banks in the country are expected to seriously examine the option of selling some of their nonperforming loans in the domestic or other markets they are active in.

Deloitte argues that after the successful recapitalization of the local banking system with 15 billion euros in 2015, the road is open for increased transactions of NPLs in the medium term.

The report notes that such transactions conducted in Europe from 2013 to 2015 have fetched over 300 million euros.