How banks consolidated

The birth of a "fifth pole" with the absorption of Pancreta Bank by Attica Bank is the first significant change in Greece's banking sector for several years. The merged bank aims at competing on an equal footing with the "big four" banks (Alpha, Eurobank, National and Piraeus).

The past few years may have been relatively quiet in Greece's banking sector, but this is not representative of the turmoil of the past three decades or so that transformed the country's banking that once boosted 50 banks of varying sizes. How did we get here?

As part of their expansion strategy that involved boosting both their branch network and their overall business, Eurobank and Piraeus Bank embarked on an aggressive spree of mergers and acquisitions in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Piraeus Bank acquired Macedonia-Thrace Bank, Xiosbank and ETVA, the bank set up in 1964 by the state to...