On September 26th, during the recent Economist Impact Event on Sustainable Finance in uncertain times: Solid foundations in volatile economies we had the chance to join an internaitonal dialogue on the environmental, social and governance elements needed when making sustainable investment decisions in the financial sector. The event was organized under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Finance and in collaboration with the Government Board  for private debt management & Ministry of Foreign Affairs - General Secretariat of International Economic Affairs.

Dr. Panagiotis Avramidis, Associate Professor of Finance & Quantitative Methods was one of the invited experts, who joined the  panel discussion  "The Restructuring and Financing Greece’s Performance," along with Theodore Athanasopoulos, CEO Cepal Hellas, Nikolaos Vardaramatos, CEO QQuant Master Servicer,  Irini Maragoudaki, Chair of the BoD Ellington Solutions, Alexandra Fatsea, General Manager Retail and small business recovery, Intrum Hellas & Dimos Gaganis, Chief Portfolio Strategy Officer, doValue Greece

 Dr. Avramidis kicked off the discussion with a description of Greece's bank performance since 2010 to the present. He compared it to the Greek "Syrtaki" dance: starting with a slow tempo in 2010 and ending with a bang in the last two years.

In the course of this discussion, he analyzed the three main factors that have influenced the course of performance up to now: organization, institutional framework, and the imprint of the pandemic. Dr. Avramidis explained why non-performing loans (NPLs) should be excluded from core banking since banks were not adequately prepared and organized in the past to manage the increase in NPLs. He then progressed from 2016 onwards, discussing the changes in the banking system and the decision to assign management tasks to servicer companies that successfully met the challenge. Dr. Avramidis referred, in particular, to the extrajudicial mechanism and important interventions such as the Insolvency Code and the European Banking Authority (EBA) guidelines.

During the pandemic, the Covid-19 measures led to an increase in the liquidity of businesses and their creditworthiness. However, he noted that all these interventions are meant as guidelines to resolve issues for Greece’s restructuring and finance in the future.

Watch the panel discussion and Dr. Panagioti Avramidis’ speech below.