Greece’s Alpha Bank agrees to sell Albanian unit to OTP Bank

ATHENS (Reuters) -Alpha Bank, one of Greece’s four largest banks, has agreed to sell its Albanian unit to Hungary’s OTP Bank, it said on Monday.

OTP Bank will pay 55 million euros ($62.05 million) to buy a 100% stake in the asset, Alpha Bank said.

Greek banks have been working to reduce a pile of about 30 billion euros in bad loans, the legacy of a decade-long financial crisis which shrank Greece’s output by a quarter.

The deal will create a leading banking group in Albania, which will hold a sahres of about 11% in the market based on assets, Alpha Bank added.

The transaction is expected to be completed in 2022.

($1 = 0.8864 euros)

(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Angeliki Koutantou, Editing by Louise Heavens)