National Bank of Greece announces that, following the decision of the Board of Directors of the Bank on 28 September 2004, which was taken in order to implement the decision of the Annual General Meeting of its Shareholders on 18.5.2004, with which the purchase by the Bank until 30.4.2005, in accordance with article 16 paragraph 5 of codified law 2190/1920, of own shares not exceeding the number corresponding to 5% of its total shares, including the own shares belonging to the Bank at any time, was approve d, it intends to proceed with the purchase, during the period between 21 October 2004 and 20 January 2005 (inclusive), of up to 5,000,000 own shares (about 1.5% of the total amount of shares of the company), with a minimum purchase price of euros 4.50 and a maximum purchase price of euros 26.92 per share.