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A Greek bank run looks to be in full swing.

In an article from German magazine Der Spiegel on Tuesday, the scope of Greek bank withdrawals is shown in alarming clarity. According to Georgios Provopoulos, the governor of the central bank of Greece, savings and time deposits fell by 13 to 14 billion euros in September and October of this year.

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And it’s only getting worse.

“In the first 10 days of November the decline continued on a large scale,” Mr. Provopoulos told the economic affairs committee of the Greek parliament last month.

All that money spilling out of Greek banks is creating a credit crunch that’s making lending nearly impossible. The scope of withdrawals really hits you when you step back and look at just how much money Greeks have pulled out since last year.

From Der Spiegel:

At the start of 2010, savings and time deposits held by private households in Greece totalled €237.7 billion — by the end of 2010, they had fallen by €49 billion. Since then, the decline has been gaining momentum. Savings fell by a further €5.4 billion in September and by an estimated €8.5 billion in October — the biggest monthly outflow of funds since the start of the debt crisis in late 2009.

It’s not surprising bank withdrawals rapidly worsened during the last three months. Greeks were faced with massive uncertainty after former Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou announced a referendum on a bailout package to save the country. He eventually backed down, and a new Prime Minister was brought in. But obviously, the damage was done to Greek confidence in their country.

Now every level of the economy is feeling the effects of Greece’s bank run. Der Spiegel explains:

The hemorrhaging of bank savings has had a disastrous impact on the economy. Many companies have had to tap into their reserves during the recession because banks have become more reluctant to lend. More Greek families are now living off their savings because they have lost their jobs or have had their salaries or pensions cut. In August, unemployment reached 18.4%. Many Greeks now hoard their savings in their homes because they are worried the banking system may collapse. Those who can are trying to shift their funds abroad. The Greek central bank estimates that around a fifth of the deposits withdrawn have been moved out of the country. “There is a lot of uncertainty,” says Panagiotis Nikoloudis, president of the National Agency for Combating Money Laundering.

It’s hard to imagine how much more of this the Greek economy can handle.

• Email: jshmuel@nationalpost.com | Twitter: jshmuel