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Most Greek banks defy doomsters, passing stress tests
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Most Greek banks defy doomsters, passing stress tests
AFP - 1 hour 58 minutes ago
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ATHENS (AFP) - – Greece's main banks passed with varying success on Friday EU-wide stress tests on their ability to weather another storm, with only one bank failing to make the grade.
Many analysts had wondered how Greek banks, heavily dependent on central bank funding, would survive the EU-wide crash tests.
But the Bank of Greece said five out of six Greek credit institutions had passed the exam, a result which the Greek finance minister said showed the system's resilience in an extreme-case simulation.
"The results are positive and show that the Greek banking system can cope even in the extreme conditions of a stress test," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said in a statement.
The sole laggard was ATEbank, formerly known as Agricultural Bank, which fell 242.6 million euros (312 million dollars) short of a worst-case sovereign debt crisis scenario on core capital-to-asset ratio.
The remaining organisations, National Bank of Greece, EFG Eurobank, Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank, and Hellenic Postbank, said in separate releases that they had met the challenge set by the London-based Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS).
Piraeus Bank came perilously close to the extreme scenario benchmark, matching the minimum requirement with a Tier I ratio of six percent.
The Bank of Greece and some lenders noted that the simulation scenario was even worse the real situation in the country, which is gripped in recession and was saved by debt default by a massive loan from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund just two months ago.
"In the case of Greece, the adverse scenario includes a much sharper economic downturn in 2010 and 2011 than currently envisaged by international institutions," the central bank said in a statement.
Eurobank said the extreme Greek scenario involving a sovereign debt shock was "particularly harsh" and "neither real nor even likely to materialize."
The stress tests assumed two adverse scenarios, one involving a severe economic recession and another that added a major shock to interest rates along with heavy losses on loans and government bonds.
The central bank said it would "ensure" steps were taken to increase capital adequacy, and pointed to the creation of a 10-billion-euro financial stability fund -- part of the EU-IMF rescue loan -- as an additional safeguard for banks.
Analysts had in recent days expressed doubts whether the EU tests would be stringent or transparent enough.
And the fact that only seven banks -- five in Spain and one each in Germany and Greece -- failed the exam came as no surprise to some.
"The criteria were rather lenient, the results were to be expected," Nikos Skourias, chief investment officer at Athens-based brokers Pegasus told AFP.
"Everybody expected ATEbank to fail, and expectations about Hypo Real Estate in Germany and Spanish banks displaying the gravest problems were confirmed."
Skourias said one test trick was to impose a haircut on government bonds stored in their trading books but not on their investment portfolios.
"If you set easy questions in an exam, you get high success rates," he said.
But IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the exercise represented "an important step toward improving transparency and bolstering market confidence."
The tests left ATEbank seeking additional capital as the Greek state which controls the majority of its shares examined a buyout bid from Piraeus Bank.
It is widely expected that other banks will seek partnerships or buyouts in the coming months to help jumpstart the economy and break through a liquidity stalemate that has made Greek lenders dependent on the European Central Bank.
"The Greek banks are themselves called upon to assess the stress tests results and take initiatives and strategic decisions which will further reinforce their capital adequacy in the context of the restructuring of the Greek banking system," the Greek finance minister said on Friday.
The ministry said it envisaged participating in a capital share increase in ATEbank. It also gave the bank two months to come up with a response plan.
"ATEBank is invited to propose a plan to address the weaknesses revealed by the stress test within two months and to implement it, in agreement with the supervisory authority, by the 31st December 2010," the ministry said.
The Greek state has received a buyout bid from Piraeus Bank for its 77-percent stake in ATEbank and its 33-percent stake in Hellenic Postbank.
In all, 91 banks accounting for 65 percent of European banking activity were tested by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors which is tasked with giving advice to the European Commission on policy and regulatory issues related to banking supervision.
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