The upgrade of the four largest bank of Greece announced today (1.4.2025) by the house Fitch Ratings.
This upgrading of Greek banks by Fitch mainly reflects improvements in their credit profile, including a longer period of healthy profitability, the completion of most of the consolidation of the portfolio of their assets, the strengthening of their capital positions and their steady funding.
According to Fitch’s new evaluation, National and Eurobank receive a higher rating as they were upgraded to “BBB-” from “BB+” with a fixed Outlook.
Alpha Bank and Piraeus Bank receive an evaluation of “BB+” from “BB” with a positive outlook.
The upgrades are also included in the context of improving Greece’s operating environment, which is reflected in the upward revision by Fitch the rating of the operating environment in “BBB-“/Fixed “from” BB+”/Positive”.
Fitch expects business opportunities for Greek banks will benefit from the durable economic growth of 2.3%, above the EU average in 2025 and 2026, which is due to the increase in real wages, reducing unemployment and stable investment. At the same time, he notes that the power of the domestic recovery generally balances external dangers.
Fitch expects that Greek banks will maintain healthy operating profits in 2025-2026 despite the fall in interest rates, due to the ongoing loan increase, in particular in the business sector, and lower credit losses due to reduced financial affiliation pressure and significantly smaller sales.
Banks should also benefit from the development of pay -revenue activities, healthy operational efficiency and increased digitization.
According to the house report, it is expected that the non -performing openings index for the four banks will be reduced to 2.5% on average by the end of 2026 (with the exception of higher securities – late 2024: 3.3%), due to the increase in non -performing loans and non -performing loans.
Clearing red loans secured by banks and managing management is moving slower than expected, but most of the banks’ exposure relates to titles with high -secure state guarantees, which mitigates the risks.