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The local government runs additional state guarantees worth €30 billion euros for local banks. The first support package of €28 billion was issued by the management of New Democracy after the outbreak of financial crisis in 2008. It was not fully exploited, but when PASOK came to power, it released an additional €10 billion from the IMF and €25 billion in mid-2010, in the form of government bonds to the European Central Bank. 

The €30 billion are one more injection into the Greek banking system during a period of consolidation, where small, medium and large enterprises from all sectors are struggling to survive due to shrinking demand and a lack of liquidity. 

The Ministry of Finance and the mission heads of the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission have agreed on the opinion that commercial banks should be supported. The condition for receiving aid is for each bank to prepare a medium term alternative funding, unless guaranteed by the European Central Bank. 

Cutting the direct access for banks to direct financing from capital markets seriously distorted their balance sheets and the results were not late. The commercial bank Emboriki announced its results for 2010 and they were not good. Regardless of the recovery program imposed by the management, Emboriki ended with a negative balance with losses of €873.8 million. The first half of last year was particularly difficult when Greece had to accept the Memorandum of financial assistance. 

The report of Emboriki’s activities of shows that serious efforts to achieve improved operating system and efficiency gains were made, which had a positive impact in the fourth quarter of 2010. It says that the net profit for October-December rose by 7.8 percent compared to the same period in 2009, while operating costs were reduced by 3.3 percent. Despite the efforts, the negative result was inevitable. 

In a written statement by the bank's CEO Alain Strub said: "We resorted to major reorganization and modernization of our network of offices throughout Greece. Today we have strong portfolio of new loans, effective action, dynamic trade policies and customer-oriented philosophy.” 

While banks in Greece are struggling for survival, their branches in Bulgaria reap success. United Bulgarian Bank (UBB), which is part of the National Bank of Greece, has made profit for 2010 of €73.6 million, according to Bulgarian National Bank reports. Compared with 2009 there has been some decline when the year ended with a profit of €100 million. The Bulgarian branch of Piraeus Bank also did well last year, when it made a profit of 44 million euros. 

Postbank, which is owned by EFG Eurobank has even increased profits by €20.4 million for 2009 and the following year it ended with €35 million profit. EFG Eurobank resorted to the important strategic move by selling 70% of its branch in Poland to the Austrian bank Raiffeisen. Losers on the Bulgarian market in 2010 remain Emboriki and Alfa Bank, respectively by 7.3 million BGN and 74.8 million BGN.