FRANKFURT (MNI) - The Eurosystem is currently exchanging at least some of its Greek bonds against new bonds and is realizing a profit by getting face value for Greek bonds it bought at a heavily discounted price, Germany daily Die Welt reported Thursday, citing well-informed sources.
"The profit will be passed on via national central banks to governments," the report said. Governments then have the option to channel funds on to Greece. This appears to be how the European Central Bank has decided to contribute to Greek debt relief as part of the second bailout program.
The newspaper said that bonds with a nominal value of around E50 billion will be exchanged. That figure suggests that the Eurosystem is only exchanging Greek bonds held under the Eurosystem's government bond buy program (SMP) and that no bonds held in the regular investment portfolios of the national central banks are included.
According to the report, the swap is expected to be completed by Monday.
A number of ECB policy makers, including President Mario Draghi, have previously indicated that the central bank could forego some of the profits on Greek bonds in order to contribute to the debt reduction effort for Athens.
Draghi said during his last press conference that the ECB could redistribute parts of its profit to euro area member countries (via the euro area national banks), according to its capital key.