BoG 2019 Balance Sheet Developments

Given that BoG released its April balance sheet yesterday, it is a nice opportunity to take a fresh look at developments in its major components:

The things that stand out are the following:

1. Regular monetary operations + ELA have been minimized to very low levels of less than €10bn. ELA more or less ended in 2018 since its figures are now basically zero.
2. Securities purchased in the context of the ECB QE program are now stable around €63 bn.
3. Total collateral posted recorded an impressive fall from €80bn a year ago to only €16.7bn now, a function mainly of the drop in ELA operations (from €10bn to zero).
4. Target2 liabilities are down to only €24bn while extra banknotes are now recorded as a (small) net asset instead of a liability suggesting a significant return of cash outside of the banking system.
5. Government balances have reached almost 2€9bn providing a large enough buffer for debt refinancing needs in the coming future.

The Greek situation has officially been stabilized with any creditor risk substantially minimized. Net Securities (Securities held for monetary purchases minus Target2 liabilities and extra banknotes) are now close to €40bn which means that BoG can easily cover any liabilities towards the Eurosystem even in the case of a Grexit while still maintaining a positive balance of European government securities.

BoG August 2018 balance sheet

I recently wrote a post on the ECB waiver (for Greek government collateral) and what its expiration on 20 August would entail. Since BoG released its August balance sheet it seems that this question has been answered.

As is evident there was no significant change in the relevant amounts of either regular refinancing operations or ELA financing during August apart from a very small fall of €350mn. What actually changed was the total amount of collateral posted by Greek banks which fell by €5.33bn. Since regular financing operations total amount remained constant it appears that collateral quality was enhanced given that the relevant haircut was reduced from 30% to 15%.

It is obviously interesting to know how Greek banks managed such a task. Unfortunately, bank balance sheets data from BoG is not available for August so we will probably need to wait a bit more to find out.

One last interesting fact was the large increase in government deposits of close to €14bn which coincided with an equal drop in Target2 liabilities. This was due to the disbursement of the last round of funds towards the Greek government (by the ESM) which was used to increase its cash buffer. As a result, BoG now only «owes» €26.50bn to the Eurosystem while simultaneously holding €64bn in securities (mostly as a result of the QE program).

ECB Greek waiver post-program

According to recent Mario Draghi comments, the waiver allowing Greek government securities to be accepted as collateral in regular Eurosystem refinancing operations will expire along with the end of the Greek adjustment program on August 20 2018.

Based on the above I would like to take a look at what such a move will mean for Greek banks access to ECB (and ELA) lending. I will be using data available in monthly Bank of Greece balance sheet statements as well as Greek bank consolidated balance sheets (available from BoG).

Overall, Greek banks have significantly lowered their refinancing needs with a total balance of €9bn in MRO/LTRO and €7.3bn in Other Claims (ELA). Compared to the end of 2017 regular refinancing operations are down €3bn while Other Claims dropped a more impressive €14.3bn amount. If one compares the figures to a couple of years ago, the amounts are much more remarkable. MRO/LTROs are down almost €24bn while Other Claims decreased a staggering €47bn.

This drop was driven both by large decreases in liabilities towards the Eurosystem (Target2 and extra banknotes) as well as the ECB QE program. The first item is down €23bn compared to 2017 and €57bn during the last two years while ‘Securities held for monetary purposes’ increased by €31bn since June 2016.

Unfortunately it seems that Greek banks also lowered Debt Securities of Other Euro countries (EFSF notes?) by a similar amount of €33,8bn during the last two years. As a result, they now hold only €5.8bn in securities of that category while they also carry €10.6bn in Greek government securities on their balance sheet.

Compared to the total of €9bn in regular refinancing operations outstanding, Greek banks do not seem to hold enough non-Greek government securities to post as collateral. Moreover, they hold €186.7bn in credit claims (before provisions). According to BoG NPL statistics, almost 50% of credit claims are non-performing which means that much less than €100bn credit claims can be used as collateral in some form or another (with significant haircuts given current Greek bank loans quality). Actually, BoG states that Greek banks have already posted €54bn in assets as collateral on ELA operations (and another €12.7bn in regular operations) which suggests that not much is left unusable.

Consequently, it seems quite probable that at least some part of regular refinancing operations will have to be moved to ELA after the program expiration due to limited availability of high-quality collateral. The amount of financing allowed for ELA (as set by the Eurosystem and announced regularly from BoG) will be an early hint on that. Other developments such as the QE program or a return of deposits to the Greek banking system will act at the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the June 2018 BoG balance sheet statement states that less than €1bn in extra banknotes is outstanding which suggests that most of the ‘cash under the mattress’ has already returned and no major positive developments can be further expected on that front.

BoG 2018Q1 developments

It’s been a while since I last looked into Bank of Greece balance sheet figures and given that the Greek central bank has released its April 2018 numbers I decided to take another quick look into them:

A few things stand out:

1. Other claims (which is code for ELA) is down more than €11bn to a total close to €10bn. It is clear that Greek banks are moving closer to eliminating their need for non-standard financing, something which could happen during 2018. Obviously this also means that ELA income for BoG (and by extension for the Greek Treasury) will also show a significant decline (BoG should earn a bit more than €10mn/month as ELA profits by now).
2. The big drop in ELA was mainly driven by a reduction of almost €16bn in BoG liabilities towards the Eurosystem (Target2 and banknotes) which total €48.4bn.
3. Since BoG participation in Eurosystem QE continued at a slower pace the ‘Securities held for monetary policy purposes’ registered a further increase to €62bn. This means that BoG has a surplus of €13.5bn in securities held as assets compared to its liabilities towards the Eurosystem which would make a possible Grexit a bit easier since settlement of BoG Euro liabilities would be made using its (Euro government) securities portfolio.
4. The lower need for CB financing has led total collateral posted at BoG down to €80bn, a figure which is quite manageable and far lower than the peak of €200bn reached during the 2015 turmoil. Most of the collateral are used for ELA financing so a possible elimination of ELA in the near future will make life much easier for Greek banks.
5. Government deposits at the BoG are now close to €15bn registering an increase of  €4bn during 2018. It seems that the Greek government is continuing its process of accumulating a large cash buffer for its «clean exit» scenario.

Overall BoG balance sheet figures suggest stabilization in external liabilities, ELA financing and a much lower toll on Greek bank profits from ELA loans (BoG should be around €40mn/month lower in April compared to a year ago).