GREEK BANKS’ ENTRY INTO THE CENTRAL AND SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE

The last two decades banks all over the world have started to expand their activities into the challenging markets of the developing countries. The transitions countries, specifically, present, nearly, the largest level of banking internationalization in the world. The Greek banking industry has adopted this tendency. This study attempts to find the determinants that influence the Greek banks in their decision to engage in international activities. The interest of the study is centered in the countries of the south eastern and central Europe. We selected a group of thirteen countries of this area and explore the presence and activity if any of Greek banks there. Our investigation revealed that FDI is a strong factor that pushes Greek banks to operate in a foreign country. We, also, found that the distance plays an important role in the same process while trade activity between the countries involved does not matter at all.