NBG chief confirms local banks’ success in stress tests
National Bank CEO Leonidas Fragkiadakis stated on the sidelines of an event organized by the lender on Monday that all of the country’s four systemic banks will get a passing mark in the European Central Bank stress tests.
The chief executive officer of NBG added that the results of the test will be encouraging and the Greek banking system will emerge stronger. The local stock market mirrored his optimism, with bank stocks posting notable gains yesterday.
On Wednesday the managers of Alpha, NBG, Piraeus and Eurobank will arrive in Frankfurt for a two-day visit to receive a first-hand update on the course of the stress tests by the senior officials of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), as well as discussing the strategy for the next few months.
The update follows last week’s conference call between the same officials and Greek bank managers during which projections that the stress tests would be successful were confirmed.
According to credit sector estimates, most banks will not require any additional capital, while the plans the lenders will present to the SSM for the post-test period could include indirect capital-strengthening actions such as the concession of subsidiaries.
