A report is emerging that the European Central Bank will decide to end its Emergency Liquidity Assistance to Greece. This is still awaiting official confirmation and French PM Valls has already said that the ECB cannot cut this lifeline.
Update: ECB maintains Greek ELA at €89.4 billion – opts for middle ground
The institution led by Mario Draghi has been increasing the ELA on a weekly basis and lately on a daily basis as Greeks withdrew money from banks.
Without cash from the ECB, and as the Bank of Greece cannot print its own money, the Greek banks could collapse and this could lead to a rapid exit of Greece from the euro-zone. Banks are likely to remain closed in a bank holiday on Monday.
Another measure that was so far avoided so far is capital controls. Some Greek banks did reportedly slow down withdrawals, but the country did not want to enact such measures. With no ECB lifeline, this may be inevitable.
This is yet another deterioration in the situation after negotiations broke up on Friday and after the announcement by Tripras on a referendum. This was followed by a decision of the Eurogroup to take make a statement on the behalf of only 18 countries and it did not extend the bailout beyond Tuesday.
The Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, said that the referendum will be invalid after Tuesday as the bailout will have already expired.
Greece is not expected to pay the IMF not other other creditors later on.
The quick deterioration means that the euro could fall quickly or at least suffer extremely volatility when market open in Asia.
Greek crisis – all the updates in one place
More:
- Greek crisis: Forex Brokers want to avoid another SNBomb
- 3 EUR Scenarios Our Greek Playbook – Morgan Stanley
