The Electronic Platform for Nonperforming Loan Transactions will serve as the main information hub for Greece’s secondary market for distressed credit, following the publication of a joint ministerial decision in the Government Gazette. The decision was signed by Economy and Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis and Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou.
The platform will operate under the General Secretariat for the Financial Sector and Private Debt Management and is intended to create a single repository of comparable information on loan portfolios being offered for sale and on completed transactions. The government says the system should make it easier for market participants to assess portfolios, negotiate transactions and transfer distressed assets, while giving regulators a clearer view of activity in the market.
Banks, credit-servicing companies, investors and relevant supervisory and auditing authorities will have access to the system. Users will enter through Greece’s gov.gr government portal. Those with a Greek tax identification number will be able to authenticate themselves through the country’s Taxisnet system, while foreign users without a Greek tax number will be able to sign in using a corporate email address, password and temporary verification code.
The platform is designed to cover much of the transaction process. Sellers will be able to list portfolios, investors can register their interest and submit offers, and participants can conduct due-diligence procedures through the system. It will also include a virtual data room, electronic communications between parties, notifications, statistical reporting and a comprehensive audit trail recording user activity.
Using the platform to negotiate or complete a sale will remain voluntary. Reporting transactions, however, will not.
Banks, servicers and other entities covered by the rules will be required to register portfolios offered for sale and report the outcome of transactions even when negotiations and sales take place outside the platform. For deals completed elsewhere, transaction information must be submitted within 90 days. Deals carried out through the platform will be recorded automatically.
The distinction is significant because the system is intended not merely as a marketplace but as a central registry for a sector that expanded rapidly as Greek banks disposed of tens of billions of euros of troubled credit accumulated during the country’s long debt crisis. Much of that debt is now held by investment funds and managed by specialized loan servicers rather than sitting directly on bank balance sheets.
The new framework also reaches backward. Banks, servicers and other entities subject to the rules will have nine months to submit historical information on transactions completed between Jan. 1, 2019, and the date the ministerial decision takes effect. That requirement should give authorities a substantially broader dataset on the evolution of
Greece’s distressed-loan market rather than limiting the platform to transactions conducted after its launch.
Transaction data will generally be retained for 10 years. After that period, information capable of identifying individuals will be anonymized.
Given the commercially sensitive and, in some cases, personal information involved in loan transactions, the framework sets out a series of security requirements. These include tiered access rights, multifactor authentication, encryption, continuous monitoring, data backups and periodic vulnerability assessments.
The reporting obligations also carry enforcement provisions. Institutions and investors that fail to comply with requirements to register portfolios or provide transaction information can face sanctions under Greece’s Law 5072/2023.
