Financial crises

Top National Bank of Greece officials expressed optimism on Friday that the country will emerge from the financial crisis and certainty that Greek banks will grow stronger following the European stress tests.

Caretaker Finance Minister Rumen Porozhanov has said that depositors may get partial access to their funds at Bulgaria's troubled Corporate Commercial Bank (KTB, Corpbank) in September.

Out of some 3.3 million Greeks with debts to the state, only around 80,000 have declared to tax authorities a single bank account whose savings -- up to a 1,500-euro limit -- would be protected from confiscation by tax authorities, reports said on Wednesday.

An analysis of the latest developments in the case of Bulgaria’s Corporate Commercial Bank by Frances Coppola has been published on the website of Forbes magazine.

The central government budget had a 2.3 billion euro primary surplus in the

first seven months of the year, topping a target of 800 million euros, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.

By Dimitris Kontogiannis

Bulgaria's Ombudsman on Thursday urged the central bank to be more flexible in managing its restrictions on KTB bank to alleviate the plight of the bank’s clients.

Yes, according to many analysts, who underline the country’s credit boom. For example, a research note by Standard Chartered, which was published on July 21, noted China’s total debt to GDP ratio had surpassed 250 percent. You could have shrugged “so what” if it was not the world’s the world’s biggest trading nation and second-largest economy.

By Costas Iordanidis

High summer temperatures appear to have messed with the reflexes of officials at the top echelons of Greece’s power-sharing administration. A sense of anxiety has gripped the political system and it feels as if the country is in pre-election mode. Optimistic projections are made one day, only to be refuted on the next.

By Rebecca Christie

The European Union wants to know how far its national governments are willing to go to ensure that the euro area’s new bank resolution authority has the funds it needs in an emergency.