Treasury Single Account. All significant entities have joined the Treasury of Single Account system, which is operational and provides a useful overview of the cash situation of the state (an end-2019 specific commitment rescheduled to mid-2020). Out of the 1,700 general government entities officially listed, 650 do not yet maintain an account at the Bank of Greece. The Public Debt Management Agency as well as the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Greece are therefore able to monitor, nearly in the real time, a great part of the cash flows and cash balances of the general government. Deposits of general government entities and liquidity of the Public Debt Management Agency within the commercial banking system will remain outside of the Treasury of Single Account. The Ministry of Finance monitors the requirement according to which general government entities should not hold more than a fifteen days liquidity buffer in commercial banks. The developments regarding the substitution of paper orders by electronic ones are encouraging, especially after entities with high visibility and substantial transactions have joined the e‑payment portal of the Bank of Greece. The remaining challenges are minor. They concern the rationalization of the number of cash accounts with law balances and the extension of the Treasury of Single Account to eventually cover all the entities that should be part of the scheme. The pilot project on cash forecasting that covers the majority of state’s cash reserves will be rolled out according to the March 2020 draft strategy. According to the interim report on the matter, a substantial share of the pilot entities did not report their cash needs in the first months of the project and data submission in March has been significantly delayed in light of the measures that were taken to respond to the Coronavirus outbreak. On the other hand, despite the complexity of the cash forecasting exercise, the authorities reported that among entities that reported data, only a few submitted incomplete forecasts and that some entities submitted data files of excellent quality. The pilot project will be gradually fine-tuned in the course of 2020. In March, the authorities drafted a strategy for extending this project to the entities that are not yet part of the pilot as of January 2021, under the condition their budgeted expenses exceed €50 million. Given that the entities that are part of the pilot project account for at least 70% of the total state cash balance, the €50 milli...
Treasury Single Account. The framework for the cash monitoring of the general government Treasury account system has been put in place, while a pilot project on cash forecasting is being implemented (both are end-2019 specific commitments). All significant general government entities have opened accounts at the Bank of Greece, which administers the Treasury account system, and use it to receive state grants or subsidies. However, some small entities have not joined the scheme yet. Even if these entities do not have significant cash reserves, the General Accounting Office is aware of the importance of including them in the scheme and foresee to take steps shortly to ensure full compliance. Excess liquidity of general government entities is being transferred to the Treasury Single Account under the supervision of the Public Debt Management Agency, which is closely monitoring the entities’ accounts in commercial banks. A pilot project on cash forecasting for the entities with a budget of more than €50 million started at the end of 2019. By October 2020, the authorities plan to develop a strategy for rolling out the cash forecasting project to the rest of the entities. In view of its complexity, the project would be assessed based on an interim report due by end-March and a draft roll-out strategy by end-April. In addition, the authorities are progressing with the rationalisation of cash accounts, including the reduction of payment orders in paper form.
