According to the 2019 Financial Stability Report of the Bank of Greece, non-performing loans (NPLs) amounted to 75.4 billion Euros at the end of June 2019, i.e. 43.6% of total loans. In the absence of strategic planning, any reduction that had taken place until then was primarily due to write-offs and, secondarily, loan sales, which were carried out by individual banks.

With the provisions of Law 4649/2019, the "Hercules" program was created, a scheme for providing a state guarantee in senior bonds of securitized loans, against a commission received by the State, which is calculated in terms of purchase.

To date, all four systemic banks have joined "Herakles", with a total amount of securitizations amounting to approximately 32 billion euros. Analytically:

Alpha Bank with securitizations amounting to €10.8 billion,
Eurobank with securitizations amounting to €7.5 billion,
the National Bank with securitizations € 6.25 billion and
Piraeus Bank with securitizations amounting to €2.9 billion, while additional requests for securitizations amounting to €4 billion are expected in the coming days, according to the bank's letter.
With these securitizations, the stock of non-performing loans of the banks is significantly reduced, since according to the data of the Financial Stability Report published by the Bank of Greece in January 2021, at the end of the nine months of 2020, the total stock of non-performing loans amounted to 58.7 billion Euros, while the percentage of NPLs to total loans at 35.8%, against 40.6% at the end of 2019.

The government will proceed with the creation of a Central Credit Register which is an information system that provides data (anonymized) on the debts of bank customers and in particular on the risk position of each customer vis-a-vis the banking system. Information is also provided on the history of collateral (through the Central Collateral Registry). The specific Registry, with full respect for personal data, enhances transparency and contributes to improving the credit quality of the Greek banking system's lending, thus strengthening its stability. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance will be able to draw statistics for the formulation of its own policy in the financial sector. It should also be noted that the other related reforms of the government in the banking sector, such as the passing of the new Bankruptcy Code, the "Bridge" program, the acceleration of the adjudication of the pending cases of v. Katselis, act in addition to "Hercules" for the reduction of bad loans.

"Herakles" has successfully operated as a systemic solution to reduce the bad loans of Greek banks. Already, in its first period of operation, it will have freed its balance sheets from non-performing loans of around 32 billion. euro.

The Ministry of Finance has already started negotiations with the European Commission for "Hercules II", i.e. the eighteen-month extension of the scheme from April 2021 to October 2022, in order to reduce both the remaining NDRs and any that are expected to arise because of the pandemic.
In the planned second period of "Hercules" the goal is the further reduction of around 30-32 billion. euros of red loans, for which state guarantees of 12 billion will be granted. euro. The aim is from this year to achieve the reduction of the NED index to a single digit percentage and at the end of 2022 this percentage has converged with the European average, which is around 3%.

Therefore, the proposal is assessed as having been implemented.