Greece's National Bank swings to loss on provisions, names new CEO

By George Georgiopoulos

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's largest lender by assets National Bank (NBG) (NBGr.AT) swung to a loss in the fourth quarter as higher provisions for impaired loans weighed on its bottom line.

Greek banks, already hit hard by the country's debt crisis, have suffered further in recent months as rising political tensions and fears of a Greek euro zone exit prompted savers to pull deposits, squeezing liquidity levels.

NBG, which also has operations in the Balkans including Bulgaria and Romania, reported a net loss of 1.11 billion euros (808.34 million pounds) versus a profit of 30 million euros in the third quarter as loan-loss provisions and other one-off charges reached 1.47 billion euros.

For the full year 2014, NBG reported net profit of 66 million euros versus net earnings of 809 million euros in 2013.

Deposit flight has left Greek banks dependent on emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) from the domestic central bank, funding which is costlier than direct borrowing from the European Central Bank and eats into their net interest margins.

In total, Greek banks' borrowing from the ECB and the Bank of Greece hit 104.3 billion euros in February, equivalent to about 57 percent of Greek gross domestic product.

NBG said deposits in Greece shrank by 2.2 billion euros in the fourth quarter. Its total exposure to central bank funding, including the ECB, reached 23 billion euros as of mid-March, of which 13.3 billion euros was ELA borrowing.

The bank's cash cow, Finansbank (FINBN.IS) in Turkey, contributed 62 million euros to group earnings in the fourth quarter, down from 109 million euros in the previous quarter.

NBG and Greece's other big banks are still troubled by large problem loan portfolios after recession pushed unemployment to record highs and continue to make provisions to cover bad loans.

NBG, 57.2 percent owned by Greece's HFSF bank rescue fund, said non-performing credit edged up to 24 percent of its loan book at end-December from 23.4 percent in the third quarter.

The bank's board named Leonidas Fragiadakis, head of its treasury operations, as the new chief executive to succeed Alexandros Tourkolias. It also picked former minister Louka Katseli as its new board president, as expected.

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos, editing by Deepa Babington and David Evans)