The president of the Hellenic Bank Association, Louka Katseli, on Saturday said the government could remove most or all of the capital controls still imposed on bank deposits in the country by the end of the year, “under certain conditions”.

Katseli, who is also the non-executive chairwoman of National Bank’s (NBG) board, the country’s largest credit institution, told a state-run broadcaster that one of the conditions, namely, a first review of the Greek program (third bailout) by the country’s institutional creditors, has already been achieved.   

She said another condition is restoration of a waiver by the ECB to allow Greeks bonds to be used as collateral by domestic lenders. Such a development that would reduce the cost of borrowing, from the ECB, by Greece’s systemic banks.

Nevertheless, Katseli, a former minister in successive PASOK governments who was nominated for the National Bank post by leftist SYRIZA, said the other two conditions are implementation of a new framework for managing non-performing loans (NPLs) in the country and a return of deposits to Greek banks.

Elimination of restrictions on the resale of NPLs on the secondary market and management by distress funds had been a standing demand by Greece’s institutional creditors, with the SYRIZA government finally acquiescing to the demand last month and passing relevant legislation through Parliament. Estimates calculate the total of NPLs, including mortgages, at more than 90 billion euros in the country, and up to 120 billion euros.

The last “condition”, as Katseli acknowledged, will not be easy to achieve.

Depositors with money in Greek banks are still limited to 420 euros in withdrawals per week, although electronic payments have exploded since capital controls were imposed, while import-export businesses have also enjoyed several exclusions from the measure.

The previous Tsipras government, which was elected in January 2015 on a virulently anti-austerity platform, imposed capital controls on a Sunday afternoon in late June after previously announcing a referendum, days earlier, on creditors’ terms for a third memorandum. A resounding “No” was the result of the July 5, 2015 referendum; the leftist Greek government then grudgingly signed a third memorandum with even stricter terms and subsequently called a snap election for September 2015, with SYRIZA again coming in first-past-the-poll, albeit with a percentage not high enough to form a government. As a result, the small rightist-populist Independent Greeks (AN.EL) was again tapped as a coalition partner, the result being the current government.

In similar statements last April, Katseli said normalcy in the crisis-plagued Greek economy and business sector cannot resume until capital controls are lifted.