articles | 28 April 2015

Troika in Cyprus to assess banks

International lenders began talks in Cyprus recently to try to pave the way for a resumption of bailout payments after the island passed a law on foreclosure of bad loans.

Cyprus's Central Bank said that technical banking teams from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank (ECB) would be on the island until April 30, and again from May 6, 2015.

They will discuss "issues concerning restructuring of non-performing loans and supervision matters" and have meetings with commercial banks, a Central Bank spokesperson said.

The Mediterranean island signed up to a €10 billion bailout deal in 2013, due to run until 2016, that was conditional on a range of budget and economic reforms. It has received just over half of that amount, but had to adopt a foreclosures framework to wrestle down a mountain of non-performing bank debts before further aid could be disbursed.

The law was passed on April 18. If the lenders give it a positive assessment after their meetings, this will also allow the ECB to buy Cypriot sovereign bonds as part of its money-printing programme.

Cyprus, a member of the euro zone since 2008, has until now been excluded from the ECB's €1.1 trillion quantitative easing (QE) programme, launched in March 2015.

Source: Reuters

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