Alpha Bank

Alpha Bank raised 400 million euros on Wednesday through the issue of an Additional Tier 1 bond with a coupon of 11.875%, a rate lower than initial market estimates.

The four systemic banks National, Alpha Bank, Piraeus and Eurobank are expected to close more than 120 bank branches throughout the country in 2022.

According to the plan of the bank administrations, Piraeus plans to close 52 branches, Eurobank 25, National 25 and Alpha Bank 15 bank branches.

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Alpha Bank recorded the highest rise

Alpha Bank, one of Greece's four largest banks, on Wednesday reported a drop in third-quarter profit compared to the previous quarter on weaker net interest income.

Alpha, 11 percent owned by the country's bank rescue fund HFSF, reported a net profit from continued operations of 43.8 million euros, versus €97.5 million in the second quarter.

Eurobank has moved ahead of Greek peers in the drive to cut bad loan volumes after completing a deal with Italian debt recovery firm doValue, and is now focused on boosting lending, its chief executive told Reuters on Tuesday.

In just seven hours, as many as 10,000 companies applied for low-interest loans that are guaranteed by the state through the Guarantee Fund, exhausting the amount available at this initial stage of the process, Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis announced on Thursday.

Alpha Bank's management has designed a strategy to reduce nonperforming loans and transform the group so that it can "turn the page," the lender's CEO Vassilis Psaltis tells Kathimerini, stressing that the Greek economy is on a steady growth path and that the international investment community is regaining faith in the country's prospects.

Alpha Bank is working on a plan for the securitization of its nonperforming loans and their management by an independent company to which the lender's competent staff will be transferred.

Greece's four systemic banks have reduced their stock of nonperforming exposures (NPEs) by 15.3 billion euros in the last year, as their financial reports at the end of June showed that their total NPEs stood at 78.8 billion, compared to 94.1 billion a year earlier.

This reduction is the outcome of loan restructurings and settlements as well as the extensive sales of loan portfolios.

The Greek banking system has radically changed over the past two decades. Mergers and acquisitions had already begun in the late 1980s, but it was two significant events 20 years ago that marked the beginning of a process that has led to the consolidation of the country's banking sector in the dominant "big four" (Alpha Bank, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece and Piraeus Bank).