Greece must reduce its bad debts by 50 billion euros by 2021

Christos Megalou, CEO of Piraeus Bank, told CNBC that there had been a "significant improvement" in this area. But "I would like to see even more efforts to reduce the number of nonperforming loans in banks' balance sheets".

"The four systemic banks have agreed to reduce by 50 billion euros (56 billion USD) non-performing loans by 2021. 50 billion, or nearly 28% of the GDP of this country. Is a significant percentage I wish this to happen and I would be very happy if we are able to achieve the goals we have set ourselves, "he said in Athens.

In the case of Piraeus, the goal is to reduce non-performing loans by 15 billion euros until 2021. This is after reducing bad debts by 5 billion euros in 2018, said the CEO.

"The more weapons you have in your arsenal to solve the problem, the better," Megalou said of new initiatives by the Bank of Greece and the Ministry of Finance to help banks in this task.

Greece ended nearly 10 years of financial badistance after the end of a third bailout in August and committed to tough fiscal targets in the coming years in exchange for debt relief .