French and German banks fleeing Athens? In reality there will be no need, because the stampede from Greek government bonds had already occurred four years ago, after the first major Greek debt crisis of 2010. Indeed, according to an analysis prepared by JP Morgan, a possible restructuring of Greece's debt would today have a fairly limited impact on the main French and German banks.
At the end of 2013, in fact, the banks of these two countries would have reduced their exposure to Greece to just over 5 billion euro, a figure largely referring to loans to businesses. On the other hand, the weight of Greek government bonds in bank portfolios was practically nil. The bank most exposed at the end of 2013 was Credit Agricole, with loans calculated at 3,5 billion euros.
The JP Morgan report indicates that the exposure of Italian banks to Greece is also limited. However, in recent days, our country's institutions have paid for fears of Greece leaving the euro, a solution that could also be adopted for other countries in difficulty.
