country whose economy 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches contracted, albeit marginally, at the start of this year, despite the cyclical recovery becoming increasingly solid and broad - based – thanks in large part to our monetary policy measures, which have led to a pronounced easing of financing conditions and a convergence of funding costs across countries. but convergence will only be achieved if all euro area countries are involved. i therefore encourage all parties to continue working hard on making the programme a complete success. thank you. 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches

and the state. second, legal provisions to facilitate debt restructuring agreements by reducing the liability of the individuals involved. and third, after many delays, a framework for electronic auctions for the recovery of claims. an electronic auction platform has become increasingly important as physical auctions have essentially come to a standstill, which has caused significant losses for creditors, debtors and the economy as a whole. let me now briefly turn to the liability side of banks ’ balance sheets. deposits are the cornerstone of any sound banking system. a stable deposit base allows banks to engage in maturity transformation and to extend credit to the real economy. so far, however, there is no evidence of a sustained return of private deposits in greece. since the summer of 2015, when capital controls were imposed, private sector deposits have only recorded a modest 2. 5 % increase. they remain some 25 % below their levels at the end of 2014 before deposit outflows accelerated noticeably. the upshot is that greek banks still rely to a significant extent on central bank funding. although recourse to our facilities, including emergency liquidity assistance, has fallen from 41 % of total assets in june 2015 to around 21 % of assets today, total central bank funding still amounts to more than 35 % of greek gdp. part of the reduction in central bank funding is attributable to improved access to wholesale financing. this is certainly good news. greek banks have gradually returned to the interbank market and were able to perform repo transactions with a wide range of mostly international counterparties – also thanks to the ecb, in june last year, reinstating the waiver affecting the eligibility of greek government - related assets for eurosystem monetary policy operations. 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches but for credit to become a vital source of economic growth in greece again, a lot will depend on banks being able to regain the trust of private depositors and rebuild stable funding lines in wholesale funding markets. of course, this is not only in the hands of banks. broader macroeconomic stabilisation is essential, as i will explain in a second. but banks need to contribute actively to this process by making further progress in repairing the asset side of their balance sheets – that is, by reducing the amount of non - performing loans. debt sustainability and the public sector purchase programme restoring confidence, of course, also means dispelling uncertainty about the sustainability of greek government debt – and this brings me back to my opening remarks. i think we