By Marianthi Pelekanaki

The performance of all four systemic banks in the first half of the year proved to be resilient to external pressures, prompting them to revise their main targets for 2025. Credit expansion was the key figure revised by three of the banks, confirming the report by "N", with the entire system showing credit expansion of 7.4 billion euros in the first half. Strong profitability, despite a decline in interest income due to the pressures of successive ECB rate cuts, and a strong commitment to shareholders were among the key features of these half-year results.

The common feature of all four? The distribution of interim dividends in the coming months. More specifically: Piraeus Bank: The bank's credit expansion was strong, with performing loans increasing by 2.2 billion euros in the first half of the year. This strong performance has led to an upward revision of the annual target, from 2.5 billion to over 3 billion, while banking sources do not rule out the possibility of the target approaching 3.5 billion euros.

National Bank of Greece: The bank saw a strong increase in the performing loan portfolio (+12%) in the first half of 2025, which compares favorably with the bank's revised annual credit expansion target of 2 billion to over 2.5 billion. Overall, since the beginning of the year, NBG has recorded net credit expansion of 1.5 billion euros, with 1.2 billion recorded in the second quarter.

Eurobank: Eurobank's credit expansion has strengthened, as it recorded an organic increase in loans of 2.2 billion euros in the first half of 2025 and almost 1 million euros on a quarterly basis, which led it to revise its annual targets upwards from 3.5 billion euros to 4 billion euros.

Alpha Bank: Alpha Bank remains steadfast in its annual targets for credit expansion, which, according to a previous report by "N", amounts to 2.5 billion euros. On a quarterly basis, credit expansion amounted to 0.9 billion euros, while overall for the first half of 2025 it amounts to 1.5 billion euros, with a margin of 1 billion euros to achieve its annual target. The management stated in the analyst briefing that "we are on track to achieve our annual forecasts for net credit expansion."

At the same time, the Athens Stock Exchange surged past the 2,000-point barrier on Monday, for the first time since April 2010, reaching a new 15-year high, signaling a definitive break from the period of the economic crisis. This is a historical milestone, confirming the bull market dynamics for the Greek market. A bull market has been "running" continuously since late 2020 – early 2021, providing huge returns to shareholders of listed companies.

The Athens Stock Exchange scaled another peak, driven by a rally in the banking sector fueled by resilient first-half economic figures and steadily rising prices—key targets highlighted by analysts.

More specifically, in the first session of the new week, the General Index recorded a strong increase of +2.34% and stood at 2,005.97 points (a new 15-year high), gaining almost 46 points compared to Friday's close (1,960.06 points). More specifically, Alpha jumped +6.6% and reached the "peak" of 3.5 euros, while Eurobank, National Bank, Piraeus and Bank of Cyprus achieved new highs. Of course, attention was also turned to the "new" Metlen (MTLN), which made its debut on the London and Athens markets. Although it briefly approached 50 euros during the session, it finally closed almost unchanged at 47.2 euros.