The boss of Italy's biggest bank says Europe's banks can work together with European institutions to help Greece.
         
"I think there is room for strong collaboration," said Corrado Passera, chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo.
         
On Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said French banks had agreed to extend their loans to Greece.
         
Eurozone officials are trying to find a way for banks to  support Greece's bail-out without the country being judged to have  defaulted on its debt.
         
Credit ratings agencies have warned that if banks agree to  extend their loans to Greece, even voluntarily, they may judge it to be a  debt default, which would cause even more problems for Greece.
         
President Sarkozy's idea was that when banks are repaid money  they are owed by Greece, they should keep 30% of it, re-lend 50% of it  to Greece for 30 years and put the remaining 20% into a special fund of  high-quality bonds, which would insure them against a future Greek debt  default.
         
French banks have the biggest exposure to Greek debt, while Italy has relatively low exposure.
         
The deal may be unpopular with Germany, because the new bonds would be insured by eurozone bail-out funds.
   
      
The French plan has yet to be agreed either with eurozone leaders or the Greek government.
         
BBC business editor Robert Peston says the real problem with  the proposals is that there has been no attempt to reduce the amount of  money that Greece owns, unlike in the Brady bonds for indebted countries  such as Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, on which President Sarkozy's  plans were based.
         
Nonetheless, German banks are reported to be very interested in the French model being discussed. 
         
They were discussed by a group of international bankers, who met eurozone officials to discuss the crisis on Monday.
         
Also, the head of the eurozone's rescue fund, Klaus Regling,  is talking to the ratings agencies to explore ways to avoid a second  bail-out being considered a default.   
         
European policymakers, notably the European Central Bank, are  concerned that the bail-out could force European banks to recognise  billions of euros in losses on Greek debts they currently hold, and  could also trigger payouts on credit derivative contracts.
         
Credit derivative contracts are, in this case, bets that  Greece will default on its debt. They are used partly as insurance by  banks that have bought Greek bonds.
         
The Greek parliament is discussing a new range of austerity  measures, which include introducing income tax on earnings of 8,000  euros (£7,142, $11,600), and is due to vote on the package later in the  week.
         
The ruling party has 155 seats in a 300-seat parliament.  Polls suggest the proposals are opposed by three quarters of Greece's 11  million population. 
         
The austerity measures must be agreed before Greece can get  its hands on the latest slice of the original 110bn euro support  package.