T-bills regain confidence of foreign banks as collateral

After a long time Greek treasury bills are being accepted by foreign banks on the interbank market as collateral for the funding of the country’s systemic lenders. Kathimerini understands that there have been repurchase (repo) transactions with T-bills amounting to 1 billion euros in the last few weeks.

This reflects the vast improvement in Greece’s image internationally following the agreement between the government and the country’s creditors, a strengthening of trust and the emergence of positive prospects.

Bank officials say that while these transactions are low-level and short-term, they constitute a positive sign that “Greek risk” is regaining acceptance and the country is slowly emerging from its market exclusion. The same goes for the stock and bond markets too.

To date, Greek banks have drawn some 19 billion euros in cash from the interbank market, while in the summer of 2015, when the country was at a dead end, that amount had dropped to just 1.5 billion euros.

Besides the deal with the creditors and the stabilization of deposits, bank officials attribute the liquidity improvement to the completion of the transaction between the state and Fraport for the concession of 14 regional airports.