The Financial Times reports on how Greeks (especially the wealthy) have been removing their money from Greek banks to avoid being caught up in a "bail-in". From the article:
Banking regulators are watching closely, with Greek banks required twice a day to report their deposit outflows to the central bank, and once a day to the ECB’s single supervision mechanism, the new eurozone banking watchdog.
Most large depositors by now have pulled out their funds, the bank analyst said.
“Last month the amounts being moved by individual depositors were noticeably smaller, between €200,000 and €100,000. We’re getting to the bottom of the barrel,” he said, estimating Greeks had stashed about €5bn under mattresses and floorboards since January.
Meanwhile, Greece’s 3.5m pensioners and civil servants fret that despite Mr Tsipras’s promises, the government may be unable to pay them this month.
Some pension payments were delayed for 12 hours last month by what the finance ministry claimed was a computer glitch. It was later revealed that the state payment agency had temporarily run out of funds. This month, payments to workers at a state organisation disbursing EU subsidies were held up for a day.
Areti Simopoulou, a retired store owner, said she heads for the cash machine at her local bank branch at the end of the month and withdraws all her pension money at once.
“I used to take out half and leave the rest for an emergency,” Mrs Simopoulou said. “Now I feel relieved it’s there and make sure I take out every last lepto [cent].”Read the whole thing.
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