The Greek Prime Minister's decision to hold a referendum on last week's European crisis deal leaves Australian banks back facing potential pressures on their 2012 long-term funding plans.Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou yesterday startled markets, governments and regulators alike by announcing Greeks will vote on a referendum to approve the European crisis deal announced at last week's European Union summit.The Greek referendum so far has neither a clear question nor even a date, though January is seen as most likely. Based on post-deal opinion surveys in Greece, the referendum also seems more likely to fail than pass.Announcing the referendum, Papandreou declared: "We have faith in our citizens, we believe in their judgment and therefore in their decision".Commented Triple T Consulting's Sean Keane, in his daily market circular: "Coming from the cradle of western democracy Papandreou's comments are admirable ... Looked at from the perspective of a tigerish financial market they are terrifyingly naive."Rejection at a Greek referendum would probably sink the Euro-deal along with Papandreou's government, and could lead to a Greek default and the troubled country's departure from the euro zone during 2012. Financial markets would face turmoil during that process.Pointing to the UK 1970s Labour government's experience, Triple T's Keane noted that modern democracies "don't generally vote in favour of radical spending cuts, mass asset sales, huge public sector job cuts or the acceptance of economic direction from foreign capitals.""They generally revolt against such things by throwing out the political party that has agreed to the changes, and pushing for new policies."APRA chairman John Laker has suggested that if the market crisis lasted into 2012, it would cast a shadow over banks' long-term funding. One estimate is that Australian banks will need around $80 billion of wholesale funding in calendar 2012. A substantial share of it - perhaps $10 billion or more - will be needed in January.Under pressure from regulators, banks have been working to move more of their debt funding to longer term debt.But Laker told a Senate committee late last month that "global markets for unsecured longer term debt are regarded as effectively closed" That global market dysfunction is mostly a product of the European debt crisis.Laker noted that if the disruption in unsecured long-term debt markets continued well into 2012, "it will start to coincide with wholesale debt maturities." That would leave Australian banks fighting to raise funds in a crowded market.The APRA chief did point out that banks have a number of options for 2012 funding, starting with securitisations and the newly-authorised covered bonds. They could also move more of their funding back to shorter-term debt."ADIs could survive a period of months without access to global-term debt markets, provided short-term and domestic markets continue to operate relatively normally," he said.As the news echoed through global debt and equity markets yesterday, Italian bond spreads immediately leapt to a new high. The benchmark European Stoxx 600 index was down four per cent at midnight AEST, with shares in ING and Societe Generale both down more than