ATHENS — Hellenic Bank Associaiton on Tuesday elected Vasilios Rapanos, Alpha Bank's chairman, as its new chairman of the board and Pavlos Mylonas, National bank's CEO, as vice-chairman. A regular general assembly of the Association unanimously elected the members of the board of council for a two-year term.

Outgoing chairman, George Handjinikolaou said that "the outgoing board took over during a period of optimism over the outlook of the country and the banking system, following a 10-year crisis. But the pandemic changed the environment drastically. However, the Association, in cooperation with bank's boards and in fully cooperation and coordination with authorities, successfully dealt with the crisis. The banking system responded swiftly and efficiently to the increased needs to support the Greek economy, the relief of households and enterprises through a temporary suspension of loan payments and successfully reduced the stock of non-performing loans. Finally, we laid the foundations for a modernization of the Association in cooperation with McKinsey."

The new chairman, Vasilios Rapanos said he is fully aware of the responsibility to take over the helm of the Association and pledged to adhere to its basic principles such as hard and methodic work, consistency, accountability, respect for each other and achieving consensus.