The decision was adopted in order to ensure economical use and reimbursement of public funds, which was the fundamental reason for the incorporation of the bad bank, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

The news comes in the aftermath of media reports describing the awkwardness of the state-owned bad bank cashing in state guarantees, which also threatened to further undermine the already shaky government balance sheet.

The amount of guarantees that the bad bank called up so far, just over two million euros, is insignificant, but hundreds millions more was potentially at stake.

The bad bank now has to refund the EUR 2.18m it had received through the end of October.

BAMC said it was in talks with the Finance Ministry on how to implement the decision, which will actually simplify operations but will initially have a negative financial impact.