The systemic banks’ proposals of Thursday on helping low-income debtors by covering 50% of the rise in interest rates on their instalments “is a good first step,” Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said in Parliament plenary on Friday.
Speaking during the debate on the 2023 state budget proposal, Staikouras expressed the belief that more measures “will follow, directly – we believe that financial institutions will move faster and decisively.” After all, he added, “this is in the interest of the system’s stability and of boosting competition.” Banks also agreed to reexamine their interest rate policy and to look into reducing fees for various simple bank transactions, he said.
The FinMin also said that the government’s policies enforced the banks’ and funds’ stability, and referred to the ‘Iraklis’ program for nonperforming loans, the percentage of which ” has now dropped to a single-digit number over total loans.”
At the same time, he said that “household and business bank deposits have increased significantly because of trust in the implemented economic policy, rising by 35% over the last three years.”
However, externallly generated crises are continuing, he warned banks, “and the state budget as well as the Greek taxpayer can only assume so much of the cost – the logic of ‘my profits are solely mine, but the cost is yours’ will not be reciprocated by the current government.”
On the contrary, he said, “the cost must be shared by the banking system as well, always in respect of the European regulatory framework and the need to retain the payment culture.”
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
