Troika technical teams on Cyprus to assess banks - central bank

NICOSIA (Reuters) - International lenders began talks in Cyprus on Monday to try to pave the way for a resumption of bailout payments after the island passed a law on foreclosure of bad loans. Cyprus's Central Bank said that technical banking teams from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank (ECB) would be on the island until April 30, and again from May 6. They will discuss "issues concerning restructuring of non-performing loans and supervision matters" and have meetings with commercial banks, a Central Bank spokeswoman said. The Mediterranean island signed up to a 10 billion euro bailout deal in 2013, due to run until 2016, that was conditional on a range of budget and economic reforms. It has received just over half of that amount, but had to adopt a foreclosures framework to wrestle down a mountain of non-performing bank debts before further aid could be disbursed. The law was passed on April 18. If the lenders give it a positive assessment after their meetings, this will also allow the ECB to buy Cypriot sovereign bonds as part of its money-printing programme. Cyprus, a member of the euro zone since 2008, has until now been excluded from the ECB's 1.1 trillion euro quantitative easing (QE) programme, launched in March. (Reporting By Michele Kambas; Editing by Kevin Liffey)