Significant easing of capital controls due in few days: Greece's central banker

Greece has submitted a proposal to its creditors for further significant easing capital controls, Central Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras told the parliament on Monday, Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

The Greek official expressed optimism that lenders will give the green light and positive announcements will be formally made in a few days.

On June 29, Greece marked the first anniversary from the introduction of the capital controls as part of efforts to avert a collapse of the banking system as the debt-laden country was teetering on the brink of default.

Following the signing of the third Greek bailout since 2010, Athens has gradually stepped back from meltdown with the further support of international lenders and relaxed a bit capital controls.

Currently Greek citizens can withdraw up to 420 euros (464 U.S. dollars) per week from their bank accounts. In case they do not withdraw the amount one week, they cannot withdraw more the next one.

Addressing the parliament's Economic Affairs Committee during a debate on the central bank's annual report on monetary policy, Stournaras told lawmakers, according to AMNA, that the Greek plan foresees among others that from now on people will be able to withdraw up to 840 euros every two weeks if they have not withdrawn any cash in the same period.

Athens' proposal also includes the lifting of the ban on withdrawing cash for new cash deposits and the full lifting of the ban on repaying loans, according to the central banker.

Athens also suggests the increase of limits in credit card use abroad and for almost all online purchases as well as the increase of the limits of payments for banks and institutions to 1,000 euros.

The Greek official also appeared confident that from August this year, Greek bonds worth 3.7 billion euros will be included in the European Central Bank's Quantitative easing program, as Greek economy is gradually being restored.

According to the central bank of Greece's annual monetary report, Greece will return to growth in the second half of 2016, but still will contract by 0.3 percent before growing by 2.5 percent in 2017.

Stournaras reiterated a call for debt relief and lower primary surplus targets after 2018 to 2 percent of GDP in exchange of more reforms.

"We should trade structural reforms and privatizations with less austerity," he stressed.

Asked about the state of the banking sector, he said that non-performing loans reach 108 billion euros while some four billion euro deposits have returned to the banks over the past year.

Regarding the impact of a Brexit, Greece's central banker stressed that it will be significant on Britain, less for the European Union and almost insignificant for Greece. (1 euro= 1.1 US dollars) Endit