Ch. Megalou: Greek banks have made a spectacular progress

Profitability will be at the center of banking interest from this year and for the coming years as Greek banks have made a spectacular progress and can now take advantage of the positive macroeconomic environment, said Piraeus Bank CEO Christos Megalou from the Capital podium. Link Forum in New York.

Mr. Megalou noted that the Russian attack on Ukraine intensifies inflationary pressures, but does not derail the growth of the Greek economy, which is expected to grow by 3-4% this year, higher than the European average and also positive in the medium term. He estimated that 2023 will be a year of return on investment level of the country and its banks.

As the CEO of Piraeus Bank characteristically said, the Greek banks carried out a large-scale transformation with surprising results: non-performing exposures from the highest point in 2016 to 110 billion euros, fell to 15 billion euros at the end of 2021 for systemic banks, with an NPE index of 10% and single digits for all within 2022.

Piraeus Bank from 45% a year ago, had an NPE index at 12.5% ​​at the end of 2021 and aims for 9% at the end of 2022, 5% at the end of 2023 and 3% at the end of 2024 .

The de-escalation of banks’ NPEs is recognized by the market, said Mr. Megalou while referring to the very strong liquidity available to the industry, as well as to capital strengthening moves – only in 2021 there were two capital increases totaling 2.2 billion euros while bond issues amounting to 3.5 billion euros were made to meet MREL’s claims.

Already, the industry’s organic profitability is recovering, with increased economic activity, rising demand for loans and a return to priorities in core banking, with 2021 performance being as important in terms of operations as lending and revenue generation. from procurement, as well as in the level of completion of transformation plans, such as the one implemented by Piraeus Bank and included, among others, transactions in NPEs and synthetic securitizations.

From now on, the emphasis will be on profitability and innovative moves, stressed Mr. Megalou, referring to asset management, specialized real estate, digital banking. Piraeus Bank will be at the forefront of these initiatives, with a strategy that will aim to expand and diversify its revenue sources, he underlined.

The Capital Link Forum was also attended by Mr. Thodoris Gnardellis, CFO of Piraeus Bank, who pointed out that today the quality of assets remains among the central priorities of Greek banks, along with organic profitability and the use of new business growth opportunities.

The improvement in the quality of the loan portfolio of Greek banks during 2021 was very significant while the trends were extremely positive in the organic movement of non-performing loans. This move was affected by the end of the moratorium on payments due to Covid, especially in the first half of 2021, although to a much lesser extent than initially expected, said Mr. Gnardellis.

Source: AMPE