National Bank sees Q1 losses exceed 530 bln euros

The considerable increase in provisions and losses from financial transactions brought about losses of as much as 537 million euros for National Bank of Greece in the year’s first quarter, the country’s biggest commercial lender announced on Wednesday.

The group’s losses would have been bigger had it not been for the 125-million-euro profit posted by NBG’s Turkish subsidiary, Finansbank, which moderated National’s results in Greece, although it still ended up 656 million euros in the red.

NBG officials noted that the group is going ahead with moves for its capital strengthening and the containment of expenditure in an effort to deal with the challenges of the current difficult financial climate. After the payment of 7.4 billion euros in bonds from the Hellenic Financial Stability Facility (HFSF) in the context of the recapitalization procedure, National Bank’s capital adequacy index now comes to 8.1 percent, while the Core Tier I index of own assets stands at 6.4 percent.

“The recent inflow of capital from the HFSF has reinstated the group’s capital adequacy. Therefore the bank has access to liquidity reserves that can cover any possibility despite the observed movement of deposits over the last three weeks, a phenomenon that is showing signs of de-escalating,” NBG CEO Apostolos Tamvakakis stated.

Ekathimerini.com