The plan will also have to be approved by the European Commission, where its impact on European private-sector banks will be studied.

But negotiations between EU officials and private-sector banks on the size of the write-down in Greece's debt were deadlocked.

All those banks where greater parts of stake or equity are held by the private shareholders and not by government are called "private-sector banks".

In 1980, after 6 more banks were nationalised, about 10 percent of the bank branches were those of private-sector banks.

There are two categories of the private-sector banks: "old" and "new".

The banks, which were not nationalized at the time of bank nationalization that took place during 1969 and 1980 are known to be the old private-sector banks.

Most of the old private-sector banks are closely held by certain communities their operations are mostly restricted to the areas in and around their place of origin.

IBJ became a private-sector bank in 1950 and took on legal form under the Long-Term Bank Act of 1952.

Operations at private-sector banks were normal as hardly any of their employees are union members.

Its competitors, Banco Bradesco and Unibanco, two large private-sector banks, already provide sophisticated on-line banking services to clients.