Stress test: No clean bill of health for EU banks

According to region’s banking watchdog, banks from Italy, Ireland, Spain and Austria fared worst

LONDON: Banks from Italy, Ireland, Spain and Austria fared worst in the latest European Union stress test, which the region’s banking watchdog said Friday showed there was still work to do in order to boost credit to the bloc’s economy.

Eight years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers sparked a global banking meltdown, many of Europe’s banks are still saddled with billions of euros in poorly performing loans, crimping their ability to lend and putting off investors.

“While a number of individual banks have clearly fared badly, the overall finding of the European Banking Authority (EBA) - that Europe’s banks are resilient to another crisis - is heartening,” Anthony Kruizinga at PwC said. Italy’s Monte dei Paschi (BMPS.MI), Austria’s Raiffeisen (RBIV.VI), Spain’s Banco Popular (POP.MC) and two of Ireland’s main banks came out with the worst results in the EBA’s test of 51 European Union (EU) lenders.

Italy’s largest lender, UniCredit (CRDI.MI), was also among those banks which fared badly, and it said it will work with supervisors to see if it should take further measures. Germany’s biggest banks, Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Commerzbank (CBKG.DE), were also among the 12 weakest banks in the test, along with British rival Barclays (BARC.L).

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2016.

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