Wikipedia

Bank of Greece

Not to be confused with National Bank of Greece.

The Bank of Greece (Greek: Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος Trapeza tis Ellados, abbr. ΤτΕ) is the Greek member of the Eurosystem and has been the monetary authority for Greece from 1927 to 2000, issuing the drachma. Since 2014, it has also been Greece's national competent authority within European Banking Supervision.[3]

Bank of Greece
Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος
Head office in Athens
Head office in Athens
HeadquartersAthens, Greece
Coordinates37°58′43″N 23°44′00″E / 37.978611°N 23.733333°E / 37.978611; 23.733333
Established14 May 1928; 96 years ago (1928-05-14)
Ownershipe-E.F.K.A. Electronic National Social Security Entity (12.44%)
Hellenic Public Sector (8.93%)[1]
GovernorYannis Stournaras
Central bank ofGreece
Reserves1 500 million USD[2]
Succeeded byEuropean Central Bank (2001)1
Websitewww.bankofgreece.gr Edit this at Wikidata
1 The Bank of Greece still exists but many functions have been taken over by the ECB.

Unlike most contemporary central banks, the Bank of Greece still has private shareholders and its stock is listed on the Athens Exchange.[4]

History

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The Bank of Greece was established by Law 3424/7 December 1927, under the conditions of the stabilization loan coordinated by the Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations,[5] and its operations started officially in 1928. The shares of the Bank of Greece are registered and have been listed on the Athens Exchange since June 12, 1930.[6]

During the Axis occupation of Greece (1941–44), Governor Kyriakos Varvaresos and Deputy Governor Georgios Mantzavinos followed the Greek government in exile to London. The collaborationist governments in Greece fired Varvaresos and Mantzavinos in 1941 and appointed first Miltiadis Negrepontis as Governing Counsellor (April 24, 1941 – July 3, 1941), then Dimitrios Santis as Governor (July 3, 1941 – January 20, 1943) and Andreas Papadimitriou as Deputy Governor (July 3, 1941 – November 18, 1941), and finally Theodoros Tourkovasilis as Governor (April 19, 1943 – April 13, 1944) and Spyridon Hatzikyriakos as Deputy Governor (April 5, 1943 – October 5, 1944). After the liberation, all dismissals and appointments by occupation-era governments concerning members of the administration of the Bank of Greece were declared null and void.

Until January 2001 (when Greece adopted the euro) the bank was responsible for the former national currency, the drachma. Greece had failed to meet the membership criteria and was excluded from participating when the euro was launched on 1 January 1999. Use of physical drachma notes and coins continued until 31 December 2001, as denominations of the euro.

Operations

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The bank has a staff of more than 1,800 employees. Its primary objective is to ensure price stability in Greece. It also supervises the private banks and acts as a treasurer and fiscal agent for the Greek government. Since law 3867/2010 was passed the Bank of Greece is also responsible for supervising private insurance companies, merging with the Committee for the Supervision of Insurance Companies established by law 3229/2004.

Its Euro banknotes printer identification code is Y.[7] The Bank of Greece also sells gold sovereigns.

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The Bank of Greece is a joint-stock company with special privileges, special restrictions, and duties.[8] It is prohibited from operating as a commercial bank.

The percentage of shares under Greek state ownership cannot exceed 35 percent[9] (initially this limit was 10 percent[10]). As of early 2024, the government share was slightly over 21 percent, of which 8.9 percent directly held by the Greek state and 12.4 percent through the National Social Security Fund [el]. The rest of the bank's equity was widely dispersed, with no single shareholder known to hold more than 1 percent.

Leadership

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Alexandros Diomidis (1875-1950) was the first governor of the Bank of Greece

Governors

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The chief officer of the Bank of Greece is the Governor (Greek: διοικητής, IPA: [ðiiciˈtis]), a governmental appointee.[11]

Officeholder Entered office Left office Notes
Alexandros Diomidis April 21, 1928 September 29, 1931 Prime Minister 1949–50
Emmanouil Tsouderos October 31, 1931 August 13, 1935 First term
Emmanouil Tsouderos March 20, 1936 July 10, 1939 Second term; Prime Minister 1941–44 (in exile)
Ioannis Drosopoulos July 10, 1939 July 28, 1939
Kyriakos Varvaresos August 4, 1939 February 2, 1946
Xenophon Zolotas October 12, 1944 January 8, 1945 First term; co-Governor
Georgios Mantzavinos February 11, 1946 February 2, 1955
Xenophon Zolotas February 5, 1955 August 7, 1967 Second term
Dimitrios Galanis August 7, 1967 May 4, 1973
Konstantinos Papagiannis May 7, 1973 August 9, 1974
Panagis Papaligouras [el] August 9, 1974 October 24, 1974
Xenophon Zolotas November 26, 1974 November 3, 1981 Third term; Prime Minister 1989–90
Gerasimos Arsenis November 3, 1981 February 20, 1984
Dimitrios Chalikias February 20, 1984 February 20, 1992
Efthymios Christodoulou February 20, 1992 December 1, 1993
Ioannis Boutos December 1, 1993 October 26, 1994
Lucas Papademos October 26, 1994 June 14, 2002 Prime Minister 2011–12
Nikolaos Garganas June 14, 2002 June 14, 2008 Greek Financial Audit, 2004
Georgios Provopoulos June 20, 2008 June 20, 2014 Greek government-debt crisis; European debt crisis
Yannis Stournaras 20 June 2014 Incumbent Greek government-debt crisis; European debt crisis

Deputy governors

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The Deputy Governor (Greek: υποδιοικητής, romanized: ypodioikētés) is the Bank's second-in-line officer. Traditionally the Deputy Governors' main remit is administration, whereas Governors supervise monetary policy at large.[12]

Buildings

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The Bank of Greece's central building on Panepistimiou Street was designed in 1933 by a team of architects led by Nikolaos Zoumpoulidis, Kimon Laskaris, and Konstantinos Papadakis and inaugurated in 1938.[13] It was extended in the 1970s to occupy the entire block.[14]

The building in Thessaloniki, on the northern corner of Eleftherias Square, was designed in 1925 by Aristomenis Valvis and N. Mitsakis for the National Bank of Greece. With the Bank of Greece being established in the course of its construction, it was remodeled to accommodate both institutions and completed in 1933. Since then, it has been continuously shared by the two, with respective entrances on opposite ends of the building.[15]

The bank also erected branch buildings in a number of other Greek cities, aimed at providing services but also to project a sense of stability following the turmoil of the European banking crisis of 1931. For that, it adopted a generally neoclassical design style in the 1930s for the branches in Chania, Larissa, Mytilene, Samos, Serres, Tripoli and Volos, some of which were only completed after World War II. The Bank of Greece later completed new branch buildings in Heraklion, Ioannina and Komotini in the 1968s, Alexandroupolis in 2000, and Patras in 2001. In Kalamata, Kavala and Lamia, it purchased pre-existing buildings. The branch building in Rhodes was designed in Rome for the Bank of Italy under Italian rule of the Dodecanese, taken over by the Greek government in 1945, and transferred to the Bank of Greece in 1952.[16]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Profile - athexgroup.gr".
  2. ^ Weidner, Jan (2017). "The Organisation and Structure of Central Banks" (PDF). Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek.
  3. ^ "National supervisors". ECB Banking Supervision.
  4. ^ Athex: TELL
  5. ^ Kakridis, Andreas (2023), Kakridis, Andreas; Eichengreen, Barry (eds.), "'Nobody's Child': The Bank of Greece in the Interwar Years", The Spread of the Modern Central Bank and Global Cooperation: 1919–1939, Cambridge University Press, pp. 225–267, doi:10.1017/9781009367578.012, ISBN 978-1-009-36757-8
  6. ^ Michalis Psalidopoulos (October 2019), History of the Bank of Greece 1928-2008: From government's banker to guardian of financial stability (PDF), Athens: Bank of Greece
  7. ^ "Euro FAQ". The Euro Information Website. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
  8. ^ Bank of Greece articles of association Archived 2013-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, Edition Θ, 2000 Chapter Χ, «ΕΡΓΑΣΙΑΙ ΤΗΣ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΣΑ ΝΟΜΙΣΜΑΤΙΚΗΣ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΗΣ» (Retrieved 31/03/2011)
  9. ^ Bank of Greece articles of association Archived 2013-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, Edition Θ, 2000, Chapter ΙΙ, Article 8, «ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ ΚΑΙ ΑΠΟΘΕΜΑΤΙΚΑ» (Retrieved 31/03/2011)
  10. ^ Bank of Greece articles of association, Edition Α, 1928, Part ΙΙ, Article 8, «ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ ΚΑΙ ΑΠΟΘΕΜΑΤΙΚΑ» (retrieved 11/11/2016).
  11. ^ "Governors of the Bank of Greece" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-08-09. Retrieved 2014-06-24.
  12. ^ Deputy Governors of the Bank of Greece
  13. ^ "Bank of Greece (en) - Contemporary Monuments Database". National Hellenic Research Foundation. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  14. ^ "Subsequent extensions to the original building". Bank of Greece.
  15. ^ "The Thessaloniki Branch building". Bank of Greece.
  16. ^ "Regional Branches". Bank of Greece.

[1] Hellenic Parliament June 2015 Page 22

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