Stay 
Trading Conditions
Products
Tools
A "stress" test assessing the health of debt-stricken Greece's banks has been postponed by a month to give officials more time to ensure that the banking system is adequately capitalized against losses, Britain's Financial Times newspaper reported on Monday.
The paper quoted a senior-ranking Greek banker as saying the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund will now ask for the tests to be held at the end of October. The three had put together a 110 billion-euro bailout package to prop up Greece's finances, after the country's borrowing rates reached prohibitively high levels.
The paper said the European bodies and the IMF wanted to see how Greece fared in the bond markets, with the country set to offer 300 million euros in Treasury bills on Tuesday. Last week, Greece managed to raise 1.2 billion euros in a bond auction that saw reasonable demand.
In July, Greek banks took part in Europe-wide banking stress tests, with one bank, ATEbank failing the most adverse scenario. However, the tests were criticized in some quarters for not being rigorous enough.
Copyright(c) 2010 News.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved
