Nomura Bank: The crisis in Greece will have significant consequences in Romania and Bulgaria 

The crisis in Greece wil most surely affect Romania and Bulgaria and the consequences started to make themselves felt: the first effect was a decrease of credits offered by Greek banks, a report of the Nomura bank, a Japanese bank reads quoted by a Financial Times blog.

The Japanese bank underlines that the clauses of the Vienna Initiative, the agreement signed in 2009 in which main banks of credit institutions in Romania agreed to support their Romanian branches does not stand for Greek financial groups. Currently, Romanian branches are financing their main banks in Greece, the Nomura report reads. The tendency is favored by Romania’s good liquidity.

A new initiative of Vienna which is on the minds of everybody in Europe might compel Greek banks to maintain their obligations to their branches in emerging Europe. Such a decision would be hard to obtain however the report reads. The worst scenario taken into account by Nomura is for Greek banks to enter in default which would attract the support and capital from its branches and would launch an emergency liquidity of actives in Eastern Europe.

Greek branches in Romania are Alpha Bank and EFG Eurobank Ergasias (Bancpost) which are among the first 10 banks in Romania. On the market there are three smaller banks Banca Romaneasca, Piraeus, ATEbank and Emporiki.