Morgan Stanley remains positive for Greek banks

Morgan Stanley sees no impact on the balance sheets of Greek banks from the measure of keeping mortgage interest rates stable, starting from May 2023 for one year.

As the US bank reported, this is an initiative by banks to support mortgage borrowers by limiting potential asset quality risks to the system.

Morgan Stanley continues to be positive on Greek banks and does not foresee substantive negative impact, as the forecasts for 2023 are based on an ECB interest rate of 2.5-2.8%, so there is no negative impact on the banks due to this measure.

However, it will limit further upside from rate hikes in the mortgage portfolio above 3% with mortgages accounting for 26% of lending. In essence, this initiative is a horizontal measure that provides a bonus to those borrowers who continue to make payments on time.

It is recalled that the investment bank maintains the “overweight” recommendation for the shares of Piraeus Bank and Eurobank, with target prices of 2.24 euros and 1.45 euros and the “equal positions” recommendation weight) for National Bank and Alpha Bank with target prices of 4.86 euros and 1.37 euros respectively.