“Worst bank crisis since 1929!”

Reuters reports that the scars of Greece's debt crisis were laid bare in heavy losses from a string of European banks on Thursday, and bosses warned the region's precarious finances would continue to threaten economic growth and earnings.

From France to Germany, Britain to Belgium, four of the region's biggest banks lined up to reveal they lost more than 8 billion euros (6.8 million pounds) last year from their Greek bonds holdings.

"We are in the worst economic crisis since 1929," Credit Agricole chief executive Jean-Paul Chifflet said. Credit Agricole reported a record quarterly net loss of 3.07 billion euros, performing worse than expected from the cost of shrinking its balance sheet and after a 220 million euro charge on its Greek debt. For 2011 as a whole, the bank took a hit of 1.3 billion euros on its Greek debt.

Europe's banks have already written down billions of euros from losses on Greek government bonds and loans, and a deal agreed this week with its creditors will inflict losses of 74 percent on bondholders.

"We can't say that the writedowns are over," said Franklin Pichard, director at Barclays France. "Even if some can say that the worst is over, we are only at a new stage in terms of provisioning and not necessarily at the end." That is because, despite the bond swap deal, bondholders could suffer further hits if Greece's economy fails to recover.

Wait…wait…there’s more at http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/23/uk-europe-banks-idUKTRE81M0LX20120223?feedType=nl&feedName=ukdailyinvestor