ECB Supervisory Board chief sees positive signs for Greek banks

Regulatory authorities and international financial institutions are sending out positive signals about Greek banks, on the eve of announcing their second quarter results.

In an interview to Estonian newspaper Eesti Ekspress, the chairman of the European Central Bank's Supervisory Board, Andrea Enria, said that Greek banks have met their targets on reducing non-performing loans and plan to further reduce them in 2020, noting that the ECB is closely following progress on this front.

Overall, the bad loans of southern European banks have dropped from over 1 trillion to 580 billion euros.

Enria said that a problem for Greek banks was the slow pace of recovering the collateral pledged for a loan, citing problems with the Greek law and the justice system, noting that the ECB would like a harmonization of the process inside the eurozone.

When a Greek bank wants...