The findings of the inspection of Attica Bank that the Bank of Greece conducted jointly with the European Central Bank’s Single Supervisory Mechanism will be submitted to the prosecuting authorities to establish the accountability of the lender’s former managers.
The monitoring conducted by the SSM and the BoG has identified a multitude of malfunctions in administration, in the operation of internal governance, in its business model, in the share capital increase, in the procedures related to the credit risk, and in the bank’s information technology systems.
According to the findings, at Attica Bank loans had been issued without any adherence to any banking criterion, and that loans had been made to enterprises involved in doubtful business activitie, loans had been issued with unjustifiably low interest rates etc.
All this brought the bank one step from having a commissioner installed, which would have had a dramatic effect on its shareholders.
A major crisis for the bank was eventually averted on Friday as the Finance Ministry and the central bank agreed on the appointment of Panayiotis Roumeliotis as the non-executive chairman of Attica, while the running of the lender will be handed over to experienced Theodoros Pantalakis, the new chief executive officer, who was the central bank’s proposal