Just as Spanish banks have diversified and expanded into Latin America, the future for Greece’s banks lies beyond the country’s borders. And in a traditional manner, the banks are following their customers abroad and creating new business and banking hubs.
Greece sees itself as a key gateway to countries in its neighbourhood, call it south-east Europe (SEE) or ‘new Europe’, stretching, in effect, from Poland to Turkey. In recent years, more than 3600 Greek firms and 3000 branches of Greek banks have established operations in SEE countries and have invested more than €15bn.
