Chances Greece will leave euro zone less than one in four, traders say - Reuters poll

(Reuters) - The chances Greece will leave the euro zone are slightly less than one in four, according to a Reuters poll of traders, but if Athens defaults on a 750 million-euro debt repayment to the IMF on Tuesday the likelihood will increase. That 23 percent median compares with the 40 percent probability traders gave a couple of weeks ago, when more than half of them said Greece could stay in the bloc even if it defaults on repayments. "The default and the Grexit are two very different things," said a trader at a large dealer. "They can default or partially default, but they will not leave the euro zone. "If they fail to pay the IMF tomorrow … the euro could rise by 10-15 percent, but whatever happens in the coming days … they will not leave euro zone." Greece is running out of money to keep paying wages and pensions, raising concern about whether it will be able to make the IMF repayment. But European Union officials still expect it to. The country is in the midst of negotiating a new cash-for-reform deal with its euro zone partners to help end an era of austerity that has weakened economic growth. "There has to be a solution to keep Greece in the system, otherwise Greece will have a huge problem" a trader said. Greece gross domestic product numbers, to be released on Friday, are expected to show the economy shrank 0.5 percent on a quarterly basis in the first three months of the year. The poll also showed that banks will borrow 95.0 billion euros (£68.2 billion) at the European Central Bank's weekly tender, similar to the 95.2 billion euros maturing on Tuesday. (Reporting By Siddharth Iyer; Addtional reporting by Swati Chaturvedi and Ashrith Doddi; Polling by Hari Kishan and Aaradhana Ramesh)