Report: Greek Officials Discussing New Debt-Swap Terms
Officials from Greece and its "troika" of international lenders discussed with bank chiefs on Monday possible higher writedowns in a debt swap due to accompany any bailout package for Greece, a Greek finance ministry source said.
The source said the negotiations were being pursued on the margins of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels and involved Charles Dallara, Jean Lemierre and Josef Ackermann - key negotiators for the private creditor side.
While hopes for a deal on the 130 billion euro EU/IMF package have risen in past days, there is still concern that Athens will fail to bring its debt mountain down from 160 percent of GDP now to anywhere near a targeted 120 percent by 2020.
One option under consideration has been to generate more funds for Greece with a deeper haircut for private creditors, who under the existing deal will see about 70 percent of the real value of their holdings wiped out in the debt swap.