ATM withdrawls limited to 60 euros per bank card
Elderly people wait to receive their pensions outside the National Bank of Greece headquarters in Athens on Monday. (Photo: AP)
Athens: Greek banks will remain closed until July 6 — the day after a referendum on bailout proposals — and ATM withdrawals will be limited to 60 euros ($65) a day in the same period, according to an official decree published on Monday.
The decree on capital controls, published in the official government gazette and entitled “Bank Holiday break”, lists the measures imposed on financial institutions lasting from June 28 to July 6 and was signed by President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and PM Alexis Tsipras. It cited “the extremely urgent and unforeseen need to protect the Greek financial system and the Greek economy due to the lack of liquidity caused by the Eurogroup’s decision on June 27 to refuse the extension of the loan agreement with Greece”.
Banks will reopen Tuesday, July 7, a government statement said, while cash machines, many of which are dry after massive withdrawals this weekend, will “operate normally again by Monday noon at the latest”. The 60-euro ATM withdrawal limit is per bank card. Pension payments will be exempt from the bank transaction restrictions, while there will be “no problem for wages paid electronically into bank accounts”, the statement said. Internet banking transactions inside Greece will work normally, as will card payments in shops, but transfers abroad will require approval from a ministry of finance commission, it said. Earlier Athens said people with a credit card issued in a foreign country will not be affected by the limits on ATM withdrawals.
Free travel across Athens
Athens: Public transport will be free in Athens for a week to ease difficulties created by the closure of the banks and a rush on petrol stations, transport minister Christos Spirtzis said Monday. The tourists will be able to ride buses, metro trains and trams for free in the country’s capital and surrounding suburbs as soon as the decision is officially published, which is likely to be on Tuesday. The offer is set to last until July 7, when in principle the banks will re-open. As Greece teetered on the edge of default this weekend, anxious drivers queued at petrol stations, with fuel sales up 20 percent on the previous week, according to the Greek union of petrol station owners. “There is enough petrol....The tourists in urban centres, the peripheries or the islands will not be disrupted,” the economy and tourism ministry said, amid fears the crisis would hit the tourism industry.
( Source : PTI )
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