Staikouras calls on banks for corporate credit expansion
It is the responsibility of the state and banks to work to widen the base of possible borrowers, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said this week.
Speaking in Parliament during a discussion on boosting liquidity to the real economy, Staikouras said this could be achieved by: offering incentives for small-sized mergers and acquisitions to create larger enterprises; debt settlements to allow enterprises and households to return to normality; promoting microcredit to support alternative funding channels; and boosting financing through a rapid exploitation of the recovery fund.
Referring to banks, the Greek finance minister said, “They are responsible for upgrading their systems and making a better assessment of investment plans and expanding the perimeter of possible borrowers.”
Staikouras urged banks to upgrade their systems for data and information collection, quantitative and qualitative, to be able to analyze Greek enterprises more deeply, to identify more sustainable enterprises and to price in credit risk with more accuracy.