Qatar National Bank has agreed to buy Turkey’s Finansbank from National Bank of Greece for €2.7 billion ($2.95 billion), as it steps up its search for larger markets overseas, Arab News reported. The Greek bank had to put its Turkish subsidiary up for sale to plug a capital shortfall identified by European Central Bank stress tests in October. Deal-hungry QNB, half-owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, has previously set out ambitions to become the largest bank in the Middle East and Africa by 2017. It had said it was interested in buying Finansbank in October.
