Greece's banks are suffering from two acute and intertwined problems. They lack liquidity: on their own they cannot meet depositors' demands for cash. And their solvency is in question: the value of their assets may not cover their liabilities (money they have borrowed, notably from their depositors). The liquidity issue started to bite when, after Syriza was elected in January, people began to hoard cash and left the banks short of it. To deal with the problem the European Central Bank (ECB) has over the past five months greatly increased the support it offers Greek banks under its Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) programme; the figure now stands at €89 billion ($98 billion).
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