Decision time for bank board executives
By this Friday, the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) will have informed the managements of the country’s main banks about the results of its assessment of their governing boards, and will also have indicated which board members meet the law’s requirements.
The general assessments of the HFSF concern the overall function and structure of each lender’s governing board. Crucially, it will also be providing detailed evaluations of each bank’s board members, signaling whether they fulfill the criteria. Up until very recently a number of sources had appeared certain that the government would proceed with changes to legislation and that the assessments and evaluations would not be sent out anytime soon. These estimates now appear groundless.
Such talk had been rekindled by Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis’s statements in early June saying that the criteria and the assessment procedures “will have to be reviewed and changed, and it is in this direction that the government is already working.”
President of National Bank and the Hellenic Bank Association Louka Katseli had also exerted pressure for that to happen, but now, according to the law, she will have to be replaced. The legislation rules out bank executives who have held senior positions in political parties, and Katseli was co-founder of the Social Pact party a few years ago.
