Banca griega tiene pleno acceso a liquidez de su banco central

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

Un artículo en Reuters sembró miedo en los mercados el miércoles al afirmar que el Banco Central Europeo (BCE) había dejado de ofrecer liquidez a algunos bancos griegos que no considera solventes. Al mismo tiempo, WSJ y otros reportaban que se están retirando depósitos de bancos griegos a un ritmo acelerado.

Dos blogs de Financial Times, Money Supply y Alphaville, aclaran la situación. Hay que tener presentes dos cosas: primero, la razón por la que se detuvo la provisión de liquidez es técnica y probablemente será revertida pronto. Segundo, los bancos afectados pueden mientras tanto obtener liquidez del banco central de Grecia.

Joseph Cotterill en Alphaville:

The flash of that Reuters story did spook markets. It seems to have been taken as a signal that the ECB was pausing all liquidity ops to some Greek banks.

It. Really. Is. Not.

This seems to be because not many get how ELA works.

It’s a silly dispute between the central bank and the EFSF about releasing EFSF bonds to some Greek banks as recapitalisation instruments. The bonds have been earmarked for release under the second bailout in a few tranches, and will eventually total €48bn.

Once they get the bonds, the banks can pledge them as collateral within normal ECB liquidity ops. ‘Monetary policy operations’ in the Reuters story above means things like the ECB’s MRO. Normal liquidity ops have certain thresholds for accepting collateral.

But there’s been a delay. A dumb, technical, one.

[…] That’s why the funding that some Greek banks could have got from pledging these bonds to the normal ECB, shifts to ELA conducted by the Greek central bank.

[…]ELA has fewer collateral requirements. It’s comparable to a fail-over mechanism in the way it works here. The sum of Greek central bank ELA increases only to the extent of the sum of liquidity Greek banks could otherwise have got from the ECB. It’s a pretty specific swap of liquidity, but in any case, the Greek banks on the receiving end get… liquidity.

Also, we should make it clear that not all the ECB normal liquidity being supplied to Greek banks has been put on pause. 1.  There are more assets in their collateral pools that they can pledge to the ECB. Similarly, they have €65bn of collateral for use under ELA.

Claire Jones en Money Supply:

What’s the difference between ELA and accessing ECB cash?

For the banks, the terms of the loans. Under ELA, the Greek central bank, rather than the Eurosystem – which includes the ECB and the other national central banks, can set the collateral requirements.  This means that poorer quality assets could be accepted by the Greek central bank in exchange for euros.

For the central banks, the difference is that with ELA, the national central bank is on the hook for any losses. With ECB loans, any losses would be shared.

ELA is usually approved by the ECB’s governing council, made up of the heads of the national central banks and the ECB’s executive board. However, below a certain threshold, ELA does not require approval of the governing council and can be made at the discretion of the national central banks.

Greek banks have already been reliant on ELA for a while now.

Algunos pasajes del artículo de Reuters:

The European Central Bank has stopped providing liquidity to some Greek banks as they have not been successfully recapitalised, the ECB said on Wednesday, confirming news earlier reported exclusively by Reuters.

… “As recapitalisation wasn’t in place, the ECB stopped monetary policy operations,” a euro zone central bank source told Reuters, declining to be identified. “They are now in the ELA of the Greek central bank.”

An ECB official later added: “Pending the recapitalisation of Greek banks that are severely undercapitalised as a result of the recent PSI (debt restructuring) operation, some of the Greek banks have been moved to Emergency Liquidity Assistance.”

“Once the recapitalisation process is finalised, and we expect this to be finalised soon, the banks will regain access to standard Eurosystem refinancing operations,” the official added. “The ECB/Eurosystem (of euro zone central banks) continues to support Greek banks.”

It was unclear exactly how many lenders were affected but the development marked a increase in the number of Greek banks depending on emergency borrowing from the Bank of Greece.

One person familiar with the matter said four Greek banks’ capital was so depleted they were operating with negative equity capital. According to its own rules, the ECB cannot provide liquidity to banks in such a situation.

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