The CEO of Bank of Piraeus Christos Megalou.

“I am also optimistic about the state of the economy and what has been done so far. I see the momentum is there, and if we make the right moves, I see the potential for the economy to continue to grow. There is a possibility that this increase in GDP will spill over into society and that is something that we all have to keep in mind, and there is a possibility that this country will try to approach the European average and be very better level than it is at the moment”, says Mr. Big in an all-out interview with him.

The managing director of Piraeus, as the Bank’s new name is, believes that today’s banks have definitively overcome the crisis and all the problems that plagued them for so many years. “All the banks, the banking system have managed to significantly reduce bad loans […] It is no longer a problem for the banks. Most of them have been fully recapitalized with 100% private capital. They have been able to provide services to Greek society, which are similar to the services provided by credit institutions abroad. They have excellent liquidity and this is also reflected by the fact that the Greek now feels safe to bring his money back to Greece. And it can also be seen from the deposits, which have been increasing year by year in recent years significantly. These deposits give significant liquidity to the banks to be able to finance and the financing has now gone from a negative financing rate in the years of the crisis, and the first years when we were coming out of the crisis, to a net credit expansion which helps 100% the economy. And we see this in all sectors of the economy and in all forms of business, not only in large companies, but also in small and medium-sized businesses and even in private individuals,” says Mr. Megalou.

Responding in detail to the criticism of financing, especially in the small and medium-sized business segment, he reports to businessdaily, among other things: “We have a positive credit expansion, which is important. We have the possibility to give more loans, for example our loan-to-deposit ratio, which is a ratio monitored by banks, is 60%. That is, we have 100 deposits and give 60 loans. We would like to be much higher. We would like to be, for example, 80. We are trying to get there, but the market conditions do not allow us to do so. Why; Because we want to be sure that we will not return to the crisis years. This is a very important responsibility and all people who deal with credit, as you understand, have it very high in their priority. We are trying to finance the Greek economy with the right credit criteria. We give important loans to many sectors of the Greek economy, always paying attention to the criteria of the creditworthiness of our customers”.

Asked about Piraeus, he says, among other things: “The bank currently has the possibility in the coming years, based on our planning, to generate sufficient profits after the taxes it will pay to the Greek economy, which enable it and to invest part of its funds in new financing – funds which are necessary for the country to move forward – but also to look at other investments in various interesting sectors and of course to return a dividend to shareholders, something that had not been done in the last 16 years. On the subject of the dividend, we would like to be able to pay around 50% of net profits after tax in the coming years to our shareholders to reward them for sticking with us through these difficult years.”

The CEO of Piraeus describes the great expectations and potential of the group’s new digital bank, Snappi, which aims for 1 million customers and which in the coming months will unfold its plan for its expansion initially in the domestic market and in the second year in Europe. He fends off criticism of low deposit rates and mentions transaction fees and how they will be reduced. It also describes how Piraeus Bank arrived at its impressive turnaround story and the decisive battles won paving the way for its impressive comeback and recovery.