Austria's finance minister Hans Joerg Schelling is convinced that an agreement on bridge financing for Greece can be reached by late afternoon on Friday, he told ORF radio on Thursday. With Greece facing an urgent deadline on July 20, when a 3.5 billion euro ($3.8 billion) payment to the European Central Bank is due, EU officials are racing to agree a bridge financing accord that would enable Athens to avoid defaulting on the loan. "We are now convinced that a solution is to be reached by late afternoon tomorrow to set up this bridge financing," Schelling said, referring to the EU's EFSM emergency fund.