Competition watchdog confirms bank probe

Greece’s competition watchdog confirmed on Friday that it had raided all the country’s major banks a day earlier as part of an investigation into collaboration between lenders.

Inspectors raided the head offices of National, Piraeus, Alpha, Attica and Eurobank, along with the offices of the Greek bank association, bankers said on Thursday.

They said the competition authority, which is an independent body, had carried out the unprecedented raids because it was looking into whether banks had colluded on transaction fees.

“The checks reflected the Competition Commission’s concerns that the businesses under investigation may have been involved in anti-competitive practices of horizontal collaboration,” the authority said in a statement on Friday.

[Reuters]