Delphi Forum: The reduction of non-performing loans so far is a “Herculean feat”

The participants of the relevant discussion at the Delphi Economic Forum, which is under the auspices of SA, referred to the problems faced by the country and the banking sector from non-performing loans (NPL). of the President of the Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

Hugo Velez, CEO of HipoGES, believes that Greece has been slow to organize the three major debt managers who are called upon to restructure the debt situation for the banks. He believes that this delay has created  portfolios that are too large and difficult for companies to manage and there is a need to introduce other, perhaps smaller, players in this market.

He believes that they should be more involved in the purchase of real estate loans and invest in modernization systems.

Mr Giuseppe Giano, President of Euroxx Securities, emphasized the need to introduce new players of perhaps smaller size to the NLL market. What Mr. Giano stressed was the titanic effort made by Greek banks to reduce their exposure to NPL. He reminded that in less than two years the volume of non-performing loans that exceeded 150 billion fell to 47 billion, while the goal is in 18 months this number to be in single digits. Since the beginning of 2021, the banks have offloaded 16 billion in NPLs.

He called it a Herculean feat, referring directly to the HERACLES program and welcomed the expansion to HERACLES II.

Regarding the effects of the pandemic, Mr. Velez stressed that all proceedings were frozen, courts closed, evictions and seizures stopped. He also estimated that many loans have ceased to be serviced and therefore we will have a recurrence of previous phenomena. This makes investors reluctant as they do not want to take the risk.

Mr Velez praised Greece, as the planned actions proceeded amid a pandemic, which he considers admirable.