12:41

Greece’s finance minister has been forced to defend his country’s bank performance today after lenders’ shares nosedived on fears of bad loans this week.

Addressing parliament Euclid Tsakalotos said Greece’s high stock of non-performing loans was “totally manageable.” The government, he said was in constant discussion about the best ways of dealing with bad debt holdings amid fears that banks are not stabilising fast enough.

His comments follow an eye-popping sell off of bank shares.

On Wednesday the FTSE Athex banks index dropped by as much as 18 percent, with Piraeus Bank shares reeling to their lowest level ever after its CEO let slip in an interview that the lender was considering issuing debt to boost capital.

If that weren’t bad enough any desire that Athens may have had to return to international borrowing markets after years depending on bailout funds also seems to have been nipped in the bud with spreads on Greek bonds deemed too high to make a market foray in the coming months. After exiting its third and final bailout in August, the leftist led government was hoping the country would return to markets this year.