Speaking at the annual meeting of the Hellenic Bank Association, Pierrakakis argued that the country's lenders have ample room to expand credit to businesses and households.
Addressing executives seated in the front rows, he noted that Greek banks currently extend roughly €70 in loans for every €100 in deposits, well below the euro area's average. The gap, he said, underscores significant untapped capacity to support the real economy.
If anything, the minister understated the case.
The latest European Central Bank data for the first quarter of 2026 show Greece's loan-to-deposit ratio at just 62.1%, compared with a euro-area average of 93.4%. In practical terms, Greek banks lend only about €62 for every €100 they collect in deposits, making Greece the eurozone's second-lowest performer in converting deposits into credit. Only Cyprus ranks lower, at 51%.
At the other end of the spectrum is Finland, where loans amount to more than 152% of deposits. Slovakia, Austria, France and the Netherlands all report ratios above 100%, while Germany, Estonia and Luxembourg hover around the euro-area average. Even countries traditionally viewed as more conservative lenders, including Spain, Italy and Portugal, maintain substantially higher loan-to-deposit ratios than Greece.
The comparison highlights the scale of the unused lending capacity. If Greek banks merely matched the eurozone average—not the more aggressive levels seen in Finland or France—they could extend an additional €31.3 in loans for every €100 of deposits. That would imply an expansion of the current loan portfolio by roughly 50%, illustrating the considerable scope for greater financing of businesses and households.
What makes the picture more striking is its persistence. Greece's loan-to-deposit ratio has remained anchored near 60% for almost four years, despite a sharp rise in deposits, the successful cleanup of banks' balance sheets following the country's financial crisis, and a marked improvement in capital adequacy. The ratio has effectively returned to levels last seen in 1998, before Greece adopted the euro and before the credit boom of the following decade transformed the banking system.
