RBS, Commerzbank and Credit Agricole have all written down their Greek debt by at least 74 percent, in line with estimated losses in the securities' net present value from the swap.

The banks' share performance was mixed as investors gauged whether the worst of the sovereign-debt crisis, writedowns and capital-raising to boost financial cushions were over.

RBS shares jumped 4.8 percent to 28.63 pence as of 12:06 p.m. in London on optimism that Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester has completed the worst of the writedowns and as demand recovered at its U.S. business.

Commerzbank slid 4.6 percent to 1.98 euros in Frankfurt as the German lender unveiled a plan to increase core Tier 1 capital by more than 1 billion euros by buying back hybrid instruments with new shares.

Credit Agricole, which controls Greece's Emporiki Bank of Greece SA, declined 3.7 percent to 4.83 euros. The bank said it can't commit to any target to stem Emporiki's losses.

Allianz, Dexia

Allianz, Europe's biggest insurer, posted fourth-quarter earnings that missed estimates as the Munich-based company booked 1.9 billion euros of non-operating impairments on Greek sovereign debt and investments, particularly in financials, for the year.

The insurer wrote down its Greek bonds to market values at the end of 2011, representing 24.7 percent of their nominal value. Shares of Allianz were up 0.8 percent to 90.57 euros.

Dexia, the Belgian lender being broken up, reported a record loss of 11.6 billion euros today. Its writedowns on Greek sovereign debt totaled 3.61 billion euros last year, including 1.25 billion euros of impairments taken by its former Belgian bank unit before it was sold on Oct. 20. In addition, Dexia wrote down an additional 1.01 billion euros on derivative contracts tied to the Greek debt.

Dexia shares fell 5 percent to 29.2 euro cents.

Europe's largest lenders and insurers are likely to accede to the Greek swap because they've already written down their sovereign holdings and want to avert the risk of a default, analysts said earlier this week. The success of the swap depends on how many investors participate in the transaction.

Under the deal, investors will forgive 53.5 percent of their principal and exchange their remaining holdings for new Greek government bonds and notes from the European Financial Stability Facility. The plan seeks to reduce Greece's debt burden by 107 billion euros, the Institute of International Finance, which led negotiations, said earlier this week. The swap is meant to help reduce the country's debt to 120.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2020.

RBS reported a net loss for 2011 of 2 billion pounds compared with a deficit of 1.1 billion pounds a year earlier. That was worse than the 1.1 billion-pound median estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Credit Agricole, based outside Paris, reported a fourth-quarter net loss of 3.07 billion euros, wider than analysts' estimates. Chief Executive Officer Jean-Paul Chifflet set aside money at the lender's Greek consumer-banking network and booked about 2.6 billion euros in writedowns on investments including its stake in Spain's Bankinter SA and Banco Espirito Santo SA of Portugal in the quarter.

Commerzbank said full-year profit slid to 638 million euros from 1.43 billion euros.

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