Finance

Finance

Greek banks receive 18bn euros from bailout fund

29 May 2012 08:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Four Greek banks have received 18bn euros (Â£14.4bn, $22.6bn) as part of the nation’s most recent bailout BBC News reported.

The funds will be divided between National Bank, Alpha, Eurobank and Piraeus Bank.

The money has been released by the European Financial Stability Fund to the Greek body in charge of distributing the funds.

It is part of Greece’s second bailout that was signed-off by the European Union and the IMF in March.

That deal was for 130bn euros and hinged on an agreement by Europe’s major banks and other financial institutions to write-off a large part of their loans to Greece.

A report on Monday said that National Bank, the biggest Greek lender, has received 7.43bn euros, the largest share of the new financing.

The report from the AFP news agency said that Piraeus bank will receive 4.7bn euros, Eurobank will get 3.97bn euros and Alpha is to be handed 1.9bn euros.

The Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) is in charge of distributing that money.

The plan is for it to provide up to 50bn euros in return for shares in Greek banks.

Greek banks have been unable to raise money on the international markets so have been relying on the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Greece for funding.

Up to the end of January, Greek banks had borrowed 73bn euros from the ECB and 54bn euros from the Bank of Greece.