The management teams of Greece’s four systemic banks received a very positive welcome from the representatives of international institutional portfolios at the three-day European banking roadshow organized last week by Goldman Sachs in Paris, sources have indicated. Nonperforming loans, they said, are no longer at the center of discussions, as they were in the past, while net interest margins, credit expansion and dividends have taken their place on the investors’ radar, against the backdrop of Greece’s recovery of investment grade, seen as proof that the industry has turned a new page. 

Greek bank managers told investors in Paris that they expected Greece to return to investment grade in September, which would pave the way for an upgrade of Greek banks’ bonds, while they also revealed that they would issue new bonds, including for the Minimum Requirement of Equity and Eligible Liabilities (MREL), with a lower level of returns, after the rating upgrade.