In July, Shares of Greek banks fell by as much as 31% on the Athens Stock Exchange; shares of Austrian banks fell by as much as 7% on the Vienna Stock Exchange; shares of Italian banks fell by about 6% on the Milan Stock Exchange, whereas the shares of French banks posted a smaller loss, of up to 4.5%, on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The drops experienced by the shares of Greek banks were caused by the beginning of the steps taken towards consolidation, to avoid being nationalized.

In the case of the drops of the Austrian, Italian and French banks, they came on the back of the publication of their financial statements and their downgrading by ratings firms.

* Shares of ATEbank lost 31% on the Athens Stock Exchange

In July, on the Athens Stock Exchange, shares of Agricultural Bank of Greece (ATEbank) saw the steepest drop among the Greek banks which have branches in Romania (31.81%), to 0.15 Euros/share.

The announcement that ATEbank would be sold caused its stock to rise to 0.20 Euros/share, but not for long. Just a few days later, the shares fell to 0.15 Euros/share, after the Greek press wrote that the recapitalization of the four major Greek banks (including Piraeus Bank, the buyer of ATEbank) would be delayed by at least three months, from the initial deadline, which had been set for September.

George Provopoulos, the governor of the Greek Central Bank, recently said that the sale of ATEbank to PiraeusBank was necessary, because the former was no longer viable, and it needed a share capital increase to remain operational.

Last week, the viable assets of ATEbank (including ATEbank Romania) were taken over by Piraeus Bank, as a last resort to keep the bank operational, after ATEbank failed the stress tests last year. The Greek Central Bank announced that the toxic assets of ATEbank will be taken over by the Greek Financi