By Anna Doga
Greece’s systemic banks are apparently trying to head off upwards of 30 billion euros worth of various types of loan portfolios from sliding into the “non-performing” status, as economic instability and a looming new “wave” of direct and indirect tax increases appears ominously on the horizon.
Banks’ balance sheets are already burdened with approximately 83 billion euros in NPLs.
The latest 30-billion-euro figure includes loans that show payment delays of under three months, or feature previously renegotiated terms, meaning that their risk of passing into the NPL category is higher.
Taken as a whole, NPLs of all categories and levels, increased by 10 billion euros in 2015, to reach the whopping 113.6-billion-euro figure.
The pressing issue is one of institutional creditors’ main demands on the leftist Greek government, namely, to free up the framework allowing the sale and management of “bad loans” by distress funds.
