Several European banks are dumping shipping loans to shore up their balance sheets.
Not so Greek banks.
After nine years of crisis, the country’s economy is in such bad shape that lending money to shipowners is actually one of the few good businesses with which they are left.
According to Greece’s central bank, commercial lenders’ “non-performing exposures [NPEs]” — a euphemism for dud loans — accounted for a staggering 43% of their total loan book at the end of 2017.
