Monday 05 September 2016 12:45 pm

Greek banking shares down after reports suggest Eurozone bailout money might be off the table

Shares in Greek banks plunged today after it was reported there was no further bailout money heading Greece's way from the Eurozone later this month.

Alpha Bank closed down 2.7 per cent at €1.79, while Piraeus Bank is down 2.6 per cent at €0.15. Eurobank Ergasias finished down 3.2 per cent at €0.54, and National Bank of Greece is down 2.4 per cent at €0.20.

Germany's Handelsblatt Global, which first reported on Sunday that funds might not be as forthcoming as Greece would hope, cited EU diplomats as saying Athens had not met all the political reforms it was supposed to implement as a condition of its bailout.

Last year, the European Stability Mechanism finalised the contract for Greece's third bailout arrangement, worth up to €86bn (£72bn) in financial assistance to be dished out in chunks until 2018. In May, the Eurozone hammered out a deal to release a €10.3bn tranche of loans.

Shortly after the release of the funds in May, the European Central Bank restored various financing options for the country's banks, essentially granting them access to cheap loans in case of emergency.

Last week, the Greek banks' shares trended upwards after a slew of strong results helped to bolster shareholder sentiment.

Although Greece's financial worries are anything but new, the country's lenders' share prices are a long shot from where they were trading this time last year. While shares in all the four major players have more than halved in value, shares in both Piraeus Bank and National Bank of Greece have plunged by more than 90 per cent.

Among the terms and conditions of the Greek bailout is the requirement for a 3.5 per cent primary budget surplus beyond 2018, and the country's government signed off on various austerity measures, including tax hikes, in May to make sure this condition could be met.

[custom id="166"]