Some seven billion euros have been transferred out of Greek banks since late December, when the Parliament failed to elect a new President of the Hellenic Republic and snap general elections were announced, according to banking sources. The pressure applied on the country’s banking system and depositors resulted into a daily outflow of 400 to 500 million euros per day. Furthermore, as the same sources estimate, the phenomenon is expected to escalate within this week, just a week ahead of the January 25 elections, when another three billion are expected to fly from the Greek banks. Since last Friday, January 16, the outflow pace increased to 700 million euros per day. As Greek bankers estimate, since the beginning of the so-called “political instability,” Greek depositors, probably affected by the Greek and international press speculation on a possible Grexit, withdrew an important part of their deposits. It should be noted that last Friday, all four Greek systemic banks made their first request to the Bank of Greece (BoG) for liquidity through the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) system, while as the general elections date is approaching, pressing liquidity conditions are likely to worsen. Significant of the phenomenon’s scale is that today, some 10 million euros flew solely from the Deposits and Loans Fund, where money withdrawal demands time-consuming bureaucratic procedures in contrast with commercial banks, thus a transaction needs much more time to be completed. In addition, the outflow did not only affect the four systemic banks but also other minor credit institutions.
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