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Athens News Agency: News in English, 08-09-30
CONTENTS
[01] BoE on lending rates
[01] BoE on lending rates
Bank of Greece governor George Provopoulos on Tuesday urged commercial
banks to put a brake on lending, during a meeting with the managements
of the six largest banks.
Speaking to reporters, after the meeting, Provopoulos sounded
reassuring over the impact from an international credit crisis on the
Greek banking system, noting it remained healthy and stable. However,
he urged banks� executives -and they accepted- to put lending into a
lower gear, while he urged them to adopt stricter lending criteria and
to deal with the future with less optimism. Provopoulos also urged
depositors to remain calm and said there were no massive savings
withdrawal phenomena in the country. He also said that bank executives
should be careful not to spark panic to their customers. The Greek
central banker foreacast that a US plan drafted by US Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson, if adopted without major changes, would
contribute to bringing markets to stability.
He said the Greek banking system was based on three pylons: first, more
than 80 pct of lending was funded through saving deposits, second,
Greek banks have limited exposure to ?toxic? investments and third,
Greek banks enjoyed strong capital base.
Provopoulos, however, stressed that the central bank was alerted
monitoring international developments to ensure stability of the
domestic financial system.
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