Greek
Global Sustain
Sign up to the newsletter


Piraeus Bank S.A.

Piraeus Bank S.A.

Member: Gold
Since: 08.04.2008

Amerikis 4, GR-105 64 Athens, Greece
RSS

Interview with Michalis Sallas

17.03.2016 Share

The Chairman of Greece’s largest bank, the Piraeus Bank, sees his country and its banking sector slowly emerging from the crisis. He called on German investors to invest in Greece.

“Greece’s economy is regaining its optimism”

“Greece’s economy is regaining its optimism” – that’s the message with which Sallas came to Berlin, where he met with politicians and prepared to woo international investors. “The political and economic environment has stabilized a bit”, said Sallas, pointing to three positive trends: Greek banks are returning to profit, the volume of non-performing loans on their balance sheets is decreasing, and the institutions are repaying loans from the ECB.

Piraeus Bank is one of Greece’s four leading financial services companies in terms of deposits and loans, andit has operations in Germany. With a balance sheet totaling €87.5 bn, loans outstanding amounted to €68.1 bn at the end of 2015, while deposits totaled €39.0 bn. Funds from the Eurosystem amounted to about €32.7 bn, €3 bn less than in September.

“We are now in a better position to repay money and loans to the ECB”, Sallas said, noting the strong liquidity of the Greek banks. “There has been improvement in Greece, especially after the banks were recapitalized.” But he admitted that bad loans remain a problem.

The Greek banking sector holds non-performing loans (NPL) totaling €100 bn. This figure includes consumer loans, i.e. those that finance consumption or housing. Some €35 bn to €40 bn of bad loans are owed by companies, many of which, Sallas said, simply need funding to put them on a solid footing. Piraeus Bank holds about €26.8 bn in NPLs of which the large majority – some €18 to €20 bn - are loans to Greek companies.

Sallas said he was convinced a large majority of these – and around half the corporate loan volume on his bank’s books – would survive. “Luckily, by the end of 2015 and the start of 2016, the volume of bad loans had decreased for the first time – if only slightly,” he said. “2016 is going to be a profitable year for all Greek bank.”

"Germany has helped"

Sallas named agricultural products, real estate, trade and tourism as sectors which could interest foreign investors. “So far, our experience with German investors is good,” he said. Sallas who studied in Heidelberg, said that the anti-German mood in Greece during the economic crisis had been a temporary phenomenon. “Germany has helped Greece during the economic crisis,” he said.

Sallas said Germany’s support in the current refugee crisis was “essential”. “But Greece has also done its bit and made sacrifices during the past eight years of economic crisis,” he added. The country’s economic growth should now get an additional boost from finalization of the review by the institutions. However, the renewed postponement had led to reluctance on the part of investors. Events like this wouldn’t help the Greek economy to overcome the current crisis, Sallas warned.


Börsen-Zeitung, 03/16/2016
Angela Wefers, Berlin

Photos