Less M&A Activity in Greece

ZEW
Centre for European Economic Research
May 2010

Whilst banks all over the world were in the midst of the economic crisis, the crisis initially passed the Greek banking sector by largely without effect. With the exception of the state-controlled Postal Savings Bank, none of the Greek institutions had invested in subprime products. Nor did they have to deal with liquidity problems, since the relationship between deposits and loans is very high in Greece. Consequently, Greek banks were able to continue their expansion and went on to invest in building up their own branch networks or in acquisitions of other institutions outside Greece.

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