Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 13-12-02

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Geniki Bank to be transformed into development and investment bank

[02] National Bank reports 262 mln euros net profits in Jan-Sept.

[01] Geniki Bank to be transformed into development and investment bank

A bank statement said the plan will be submitted to banking authorities for approval as soon as it is ready.

Geniki Bank said its activities will focus on asset management products, raising savings, selective funding of healthy enterprises with capital and liquidity combined with a parallel raising of capital from international markets, capital market consulting services, management of international and domestic development and investment capital and offering a full range of non-performing loans management services.

The bank reported net after-tax losses of 14.4 million euros in the January-September period, from a net loss of 85.3 million euros in the corresponding period last year. Excluding extra expenses, its losses fell to 7.4 million euros.

Pre-provision loans totaled 3.1 billion euros, of which 49 pct were corporate loans.

Deposits totalled around 2.0 billion euros at the end of September, down 3.0 pct compared with December 2012, despite a significant reduction of the bank's branch network. Geniki Bank said non-performing loans fell 2.0 pct in the third quarter of the year, while its capital adequacy rate (Core Tier I) jumped to 17.55 pct in the third quarter from 14.70 pct in December 2012, the highest rate in the Greek market.

(File photo. ANA-MPA/Orestis Panagiotou)

[02] National Bank reports 262 mln euros net profits in Jan-Sept.

The bank attributed this development to an improving domestic economic climate, allowing a slowdown of new bad debts, a decline in deposit interest rates and a decline in high trading losses of the previous year.

National Bank Group said Finansbank contributed positively to the group's results in the nine-month period, reporting earnings of 412 million euros, while its subsidiaries in Southeastern Europe contributed with profits of 17 million euros after losses of 38 million euros last year. On a quarterly basis, the group reported net profits worth 89 million euros.

Commenting on the results, Alexandros Tourkolias, chief executive of the group, said it was a general assessment that there was a change of climate in the country and the banking environment. "A progress seen in crucial sectors of the economy and the banking system has surfaced in strong investment interest which is currently in a process of transforming into investments. It is important to build on these foundations," he said, adding that challenges for the banking system still remained. "We believe that the system will respond successfully to a new round of extreme stress tests, which will be an opportunity for Greek banks to be put in comparison with European banks."

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