Greece debt swap deadline looms.

BBC - Investors have until Thursday evening to sign up to a swap of bonds that is vital to keeping Greece in the euro.

Greece needs at least 75% of its bondholders to agree to take a cut in the value of their holdings by 20:00 GMT.

Greek officials said that almost 60% had signed up already and were "optimistic" the deal would be successful.

Without the deal, Greece will not receive another bailout.

Greece has said it wants 90% of bondholders, such as banks and pension funds, to agree to take a 53.5% cut in the 206bn euros ($272; £172bn) of Greek bonds they hold.

So far, Germany's Munich Re, French banks Societe Generale and BNP Paribas and some pension funds have said they will sign up.

"The pace of responses to the bond offer is good, the percentage of bondholders tendering voluntarily is very high," a Greek government official said.

But some small pension funds have said they will not - and others are waiting to see what hedge funds will do.

One bondholder told the BBC that he had "no incentive" to accept the deal and would not do so.

"I'm not in the business for altruistic reasons," said Patrick Armstrong, managing partner at Armstrong Investment Managers. "Capital markets function best when people are out to deliver return on capital investment."

The government said an announcement on take-up of the swap will appear on its Greek bonds website at 06:00 GMT on Friday.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund have said - if the debt swap does not go through - that Greece will not get its latest bailout of 130bn euros.

Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said there would be no better offer, and the deal was vital for eurozone financial stability.

Mr Rehn said: "It is important that all investors recognise that Europe has committed the maximum funds available to this voluntary debt exchange and that full participation is necessary for the Greek programme to move forward."

The Greek Finance Ministry has made it clear that the alternative to the debt swap is a potential default.

"The republic's representative noted that if [private sector involvement] is not successfully completed, the official sector will not finance Greece's economic programme and Greece will need to restructure its debt," it said on Tuesday.

Their 107bn-euro write-off - the "haircut" - together with a huge package of public sector cuts aim to reduce Greek debt from 160% of GDP to 120.5% by 2020.

Athens was first bailed out in 2010 with 109bn euros from the EU and IMF.