A debtor's crisis is always a creditor's crisis. The four main Greek banks know something about it. In the morning their rating was downgraded to CCC, the 'junk' credit rating, by the rating agency Standard & Poor's. Greek public debt is therefore sinking private institutions, which hold about half of the approximately 300 billion euros of Greek bonds. Last week, Athens' debt was also upgraded to 'triple C' by the US agency.
To suffer the ax of the rating, cut by three notches, are Alpha Bank, Efg Eurobank, Piraeus Bank and National Bank of Greece.
The decision comes a day after a meeting of euro area finance ministers in Brussels. The Eurogroup failed to reach an agreement on the debt restructuring, which the ECB is strenuously opposing. Germany, on the other hand, together with the Netherlands, Austria and Finland, would like a partial default with the involvement of private creditors. Result of the impasse: no go-ahead for new funds for Athens, which in about a month could find itself short of liquidity and declare bankruptcy.
