The Greek financial system has remained resilient underpinned by strengthening banks’ balance sheets, but still faces significant challenges ahead including the re-emergence of imbalances in the real estate market. Recognizing these imbalances, the authorities have recently introduced the necessary legal framework for setting borrower-based measures (BBMs), paving the way to activate both income- and collateral-based measures in near term. Simulations, which employ a quantitative framework combining micro- and macro-level data, show that BBMs would help enhance household resilience, with synergies when caps on debt service-to-income (DSTI) and loan-to-value (LTV) ratios are jointly implemented, leading over time to the more resilient banking system against potential risks. Caps could initially be set at less binding levels and gradually tightened based on a systemic risk assessment.

Greece: Selected Issues

This note provides guidance to facilitate the staff’s advice on macroprudential policy in Fund surveillance. It elaborates on the principles set out in the “Key Aspects of Macroprudential Policy,” taking into account the work of international standard setters as well as the evolving country experience with macroprudential policy. The main note is accompanied by supplements offering Detailed Guidance on Instruments and Considerations for Low Income Countries

Greece: Selected Issues

This book deals with the challenges of macro financial linkages in the emerging markets.

We present a semi-structural model of default risk, which is a function of loan and borrower characteristics, economic conditions, and the regulatory environment. We use this model to simulate bank credit losses for stress-testing purposes and to calibrate borrower-based macroprudential tools. The proposed approach is very flexible and is particularly useful when there is limited history of crisis episodes, when crises bring unanticipated shocks where past tail events offer little guidance and when structural shocks or changes in financial regulations have altered the loan default process. We apply the model to quantify mortgage lending risk in two distinct mortgage markets. For each application, we show a range of modeling adjustments that can be made to capture country-specific institutional features. The model uses bank portfolio data broken down by risk bucket and vintage, which enables us to take explicit account of the loan life cycle and to incorporate the housing and economic cycles. This feature facilitates a timely assessment of banks' loss-absorbing capacity and the buildup of systemic risk conditional on policy. It also enables counterfactual analysis and the evaluation of macroprudential policy interventions.

This note covers considerations that can guide the staff’s policy advice on the use of a broad range of macroprudential tools. It discusses the transmission and likely effectiveness of these tools in mitigating systemic risks and the set of indicators that can be used in surveillance to assess the need for changes in macroprudential policy settings. This note is a supplement to the Staff Guidance Note on Macroprudential Policy.