Greece’s Parliament passed a tough austerity measure as a precondition for a bailout agreement. The stakes are high for US banks because five of the largest banks have billions invested in the Euro-zone countries that are most likely to default.
Large US financial institutions are heavily invested in euro zone countries; Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup each have over $14 billion invested in the five worst countries. If they default, US bank lending will be curtailed significantly.
