Greece extended its offer to buy back debt until today, seeking more bids from bondholders after falling short of a target to retire bonds worth €30 billion at a cost of just €10 billion.

Despite the initial lack of investor interest, the scheme is expected to ultimately hit its targets since Greek banks are expected to stump up the shortfall.

They have already tendered about €10 billion of bonds out of their total holdings of about €17 billion.

A total of €26.5 billion euro was tendered at an average price of 33.4 per cent of face value when the offer expired on Friday, a senior euro zone official said. - Reuters