Greece's NBG has credit lines of 5.5 bln euros

National Bank (NBGr.AT), Greece's biggest lender, has increased credit lines with foreign lenders, as it strives to regain full access to the interbank market, which it lost because of the country's debt crisis.
"We opened interbank lines exceeding 5.5 billion euros ($7.3 billion)," chief executive Apostolos Tamvakakis told shareholders on Friday. Earlier this month, an NBG official had said the group had repo lines of up to 4.7 billion euros with maturities up to 12 months, and would continue an effort to broaden funding sources.This signalled improved access to the wholesale funding markets which shut their doors to Greek lenders in the wake of the crisis, forcing banks to turn to the European Central Bank for funding. Greek banks had to use the ECB as lender of last resort for liquidity, using Greek government bonds and guarantees as collateral.
Latest data showed ECB lending to Greek banks dropped 1.7 percent month-on-month to 94.3 billion euros in September.

In October, NBG strengthened its balance sheet via a 1.8 billion euro rights issue. It is also eyeing proceeds of another billion from the planned sale of a 20 percent stake in Turkish unit Finansbank in early 2011.
"After the sale of the Finansbank stake, the capital adequacy ratio will be between 14.5 and 15 percent, one of the highest in Europe," Tamvakakis said. NBG passed a European stress test in July, scoring a Tier 1 capital ratio of 7.4 percent under an extreme scenario simulation. EFG Eurobank, the country's second-largest lender which also passed the July stress test, said earlier this month it had repo lines totaling 4.0 billion euros with foreign lenders, having used 3.0 billion to fund its non-Greek bond portfolio

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