The former governor of the Bank of Greece breathed his last at the age of 74. George Provopoulos.

Giorgos Provopoulos was an economist, academic and banker. He was governor of the Bank of Greece from June 20, 2008 to June 20, 2014.

He was born on April 20, 1950 in Piraeus. He graduated from the Economics Department of the Athens Law School and continued his studies on a scholarship in Britain, where he received his PhD from the University of Essex on a scholarship from the Government Scholarship Foundation.

From 1979 to 2007 he taught Economics at the University of Athens. In 1990, together with Angelos Angelopoulos, he participated in a committee set up by the Zolotas Government to stabilize the economy. He belongs politically to the New Democracy and during the government of Constantinos Mitsotakis (1990-1993) he was deputy governor of the Bank of Greece as well as president of the Council of Economic Experts. When PASOK returned to power in 1993, Giorgos Provopoulos switched to the private sector, and worked as a financial advisor at Alpha Bank. In 2004, he had a very important role in writing the government program of the New Democracy in the field of economy. In the same year, he was appointed to the management of Emporiki Bank by Costas Karamanlis and then oversaw its sale to the French of Credit Agricole, an act for which he received criticism. Between 2006 and 2008 he was vice president and managing director of Piraeus Bank.

In June 2008, the six-year term of its commander ended Bank of Greece Nikos Garganas, who had been selected in 2002 by the previous PASOK government, and Giorgos Provopoulos was appointed commander of the Central Bank by decision of the Karamanlis government. His term ended in 2014 and he was succeeded by Yiannis Stournaras. Since 2015 he has been on the board of Eurobank managing the bank’s branches in Bulgaria.

Among other things, he has participated as vice-president in the board of the Union of Hellenic Banks, member of the Monetary Committee of the European Union, Deputy Governor of the International Monetary Fund for Greece, vice-president of the Postal Savings Bank, member of the company TITAN and the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE). .

In 2003 he was honored by the Academy of Athens with the Class of Ethics and Political Sciences prize for his book The Dynamics of the Financial System.