Greece

The International Monetary Fund has sent its strongest signal that it may walk away from Greece’s new bailout programme, arguing in a confidential analysis that the country’s debt is skyrocketing and budget surplus targets set by Athens cannot be achieved, the Financial Times reported. In the three-page memo, sent to EU authorities at the weekend and obtained by the Financial Times, the IMF said the recent turmoil in the Greek economy would lead debt to peak at close to 200 per cent of economic output over the next two years.

The Greek government repaid Samurai notes maturing on Tuesday, according to bond agent Mizuho Bank, in a first sign the nation is honouring its obligations after reaching a deal with creditors, the Irish Times reported. Masako Shiono, a spokeswoman for Mizuho, confirmed the repayment. The outstanding amount was 11.67 billion yen ($95 million). The price of the securities fell to 44.73 yen against par on July 10th, compared with 80.35 yen on June 1st, the data show.

Greece succumbed to its European creditors’ demands, agreeing to adopt punishing austerity measures within days and submit to other major concessions to rescue it from a financial meltdown and keep its place in the eurozone, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal—hammered out early Monday after 22 hours of often-acrimonious negotiations among the currency union’s leaders and finance ministers—would provide Athens with as much as €86 billion ($96 billion) in fresh bailout loans over the next three years.

Greek banks have been dragged back from the edge of the precipice. Had marathon talks failed to produce an agreement on Monday, Greece’s four big banks would have collapsed. Instead, they will get 25 billion euros in recapitalization resources. But there’s still plenty to fret about, the International New York Times reported. Lenders are almost out of liquidity. Despite capital controls limiting withdrawals to €60 a day, the sector will run out of cash sometime this week, a person familiar with the situation estimates.

Many Greeks went to bed on Friday thinking that their government and its creditors had all but completed a deal that would keep the country in the eurozone and was acceptable all around, even though it contained another raft of austerity measures, the International New York Times reported. But by midday Saturday any sense of relief was gone, replaced by anxiety as negotiations in Brussels took a tough turn.

As eurozone leaders argued over the fate of Greece, Mario Draghi was watching their every move with mounting anxiety, the Financial Times reported. As president of the European Central Bank he is responsible for the Greek banks’ main lifeline — €89bn in emergency loans that have kept the lenders from collapse. Mr Draghi stopped increasing these credits — called emergency lending assistance (ELA) — last month, when radical Greek premier Alexis Tsipras broke off negotiations and launched his controversial referendum.

Only a day after grim predictions of financial and social collapse in Greece, a scramble appeared underway to work out the details of a new bailout package to bring the country back from the brink of falling out of the euro, the International New York Times reported. As details of the new offer emerged, it appeared that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was capitulating to demands on harsh austerity terms that he urged his countrymen to reject in the referendum last Sunday, like tax increases and various measures to cut the costs of pensions. But Mr.

Greece formally requested a new three-year bailout from the eurozone’s rescue fund and promised to implement pension and tax reforms as early as next week as it sought to convince creditors it was serious about a deal, the Financial Times reported. After being told by eurozone leaders it had to reach an agreement by the end of Sunday or face exit from the euro, Athens said it would also set out in detail a “comprehensive and specific reform agenda” by Thursday.

A looming bond payment by Greece to the European Central Bank is emerging as the potentially decisive event in the country’s attempt to stay in the euro and avoid a banking collapse, The Wall Street Journal reported. On July 20, Greece must repay €3.5 billion ($3.84 billion) in bonds held by the European Central Bank. The Athens government doesn’t have the money and without a fresh infusion from its main creditors—other eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund—it almost certainly won’t have it by then.

For months “Grexit” has been a regular topic for speculation among foreign currency specialists. But the working assumption has been that all parties in Greece’s drawn-out saga would find a way of resolving their differences and keep the country in the eurozone. That is no longer the case following the resounding “No” vote in the Greek referendum. As the financial markets digested the referendum outcome, foreign exchange strategists began to factor in the increased probability, instead of mere possibility, of Grexit.