But what does this really mean?  The emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) is a mechanism, which lends money to the systemic Greek banks while accepting Greek National Bonds as collateral.  These bonds are not marketable in the actual markets and that is why they are only accepted by the ELA with a haircut.  There are no official records but there is some information that the current haircut is around 40% at the moment.  That means that for every bond with the name value of 1 Billion, that the Greek government issues, the banks actually get 600 mil euros.  If, tomorrow, the ECB decides to cut the name value of these bonds by 75% (a number which has been mentioned in bankers circles) then the ability of the Greek banks to borrow money at a somewhat acceptable rate will be so hindered to such an extent that the banks might even become insolvent.