Pressure on Banks for Interest Rates

Pressure has been stepped up on Banks in order to decrease high interest rates on consuming loans and credit cards. Following the PM's stern warning to bankers, as per which what they have done is not enough, in its letter to the National Bank of Greece, the Bank of Greece has asked it to withdraw immediately the new terms it had implemented on credit card owners. Meanwhile, the FBBank has re-adjusted its interest rates.

In its letter, the Bank of Greece asks for the withdrawal of the terms which allow for the re-adjustment of interest rates on the basis of 14 indices and also allow a 30-day time limit to accept the new contract with the alternative choice the full settlement of the debt.

It is worth mentioning that on 7 November, Development Minister Christos Folias asked from the National Bank of Greece to stop that policy, otherwise sanctions would be implemented.
Following the European Central Bank's decision to decrease its basic interest rate by 0.50% recently, FBBank has re-adjusted the bank's interest rates that are related with the basic interest rate of the European Central Bank.

As per the announcement, the interest rate of the "Europremium" deposit account has been re-adjusted to 3.50%, while the interest rate of the Value deposit account has been re-adjusted to 3.50% for sums over €5,000.

The floating rates of housing loans that are related to the interest rate of the European Central Bank will drop by 0.50%, while housing loans with a steady interest ready will not change for 3.5 and 10 years respectively.

Meanwhile, the President of the Professional Chamber of Commerce Michalis Zorpidis has sued banks for re-adjusting arbitrarily interest rates of loans given to professionals and enterprises.

In parallel, he asked from the Competition committee to intervene, calling on consumers to stop using credit cards.

14.11.2008