Greece mulls "Brown Plan" for crisis: paper

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece will announce measures to support banks amidst the global economic crisis that are in line with those outlined by British premier Gordon Brown, financial daily Kathimerini reported on Tuesday, without citing sources.

The paper said the government plans to secure liquidity of about 20 billion euros for the country's banking system over the next 2-3 years.

The mechanism via which state money may find its way into lenders may be by through the purchase of bank preferred shares by the government.

The state may also guarantee interbank loans along the lines agreed by world finance ministers at their meetings in Washington and Paris last week, the paper said.

The plans are set around four main pillars of strengthening liquidity, guaranteeing bank deposits, modifying the mark-to-market rule and strengthening banks through the state purchase of shares.

Government and Bank of Greece officials were not immediately available for comment.

The U.K. has said it would recapitalize the country's banks by buying shares in them and move to guarantee interbank lending in a bid to unfreeze wholesale markets and ease strains on the financial system.

(Reporting by George Hatzidakis; editing by Chris Pizzey)