Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras reiterated on Thursday that the European Central Bank's (ECB) key interest rate will fall to 2% in the autumn, from the current 3%.
In an interview with the SKAI radio station, speaking on bank commissions, he noted that they are not only from money transfers, from withdrawals from ATMs that are related to the measures.
He added that they are also commissions from investment banking, from portfolio management and as he noted "so you can't interfere with them, as they are the fees for doing business. 'So believe me the measures are right, measured and priced. Maybe the banks have also fallen a little bit victim to their own rhetoric that everything is going perfectly, that they have very big profits." He also noted that banks have been making profits lately.
"Of course, they must have profits and to a very large extent, their profits are the result of the monetary policy that we are pursuing at the European Central Bank. Don't forget in previous years they also had big losses," Stournaras said.