Greek Bank Withdrawals Accelerated Amid Crisis

Bloomberg
November 29, 2011

Greek political instability spurred an acceleration of bank withdrawals, with the decline stemmed by the appointment of a new government this month.

Greek banks saw an outflow in deposits of about 13 billion euros to 14 billion euros ($18.7 billion) in the two months to the end of October, said George Provopoulos, the head of the central bank and a member of the European Central Bank Governing Council. Deposits totaled 183.2 billion euros at the end of September.

“One could say these two, two and a half months have been the worst for deposits since the start of the crisis,” Provopoulos told lawmakers in Athens today. He said the decline continued in early November and has since stabilized.

The comments indicate that as much as 8.6 billion euros moved out of the Greek banking system in October alone, since the central bank had reported a 5.4 billion-euro outflow in September. The September figure was the biggest one-month decline since Greece joined the euro as doubts surfaced about the country’s ability to meet the terms of an EU-led bailout.

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