Brussels, 20/08/2014 (Agence Europe) - In early August, the European Central Bank (ECB) published a manual detailing how it will incorporate findings from its asset quality review (AQR), which it is currently carrying out into nearly 130 systemic banking groups, into the “stress test” exercise to which the same financial institutions will be subject.
“We are dedicating considerable time and effort to making this process rigorous. The join-up includes all the information we have gathered during the AQR, setting this exercise apart from previous ones”, said ECB Vice-President Vítor Costâncio, in a press release in which he went on to stress the efforts made to ensure transparency.
The ECB manual stresses that one of the main strengths of the exercise lies in the fact that the results of the asset quality review are taken into account to adjust the balance sheets which will be subjected to the stress tests. At the same time, the national and European supervisors taking part in the operation have established a quality assurance system to verify the data, to ensure that the definitive findings of the stress tests, which are expected to be published in the second half of October, are accurate, coherent and credible.
In early November, the ECB will take on responsibility for the direct supervision of nearly 130 banking groups of systemic importance in the Eurozone, to make the “single supervision” plank of banking union a reality. The definitive list of the financial institutions concerned will be announced on Thursday 4 September. See: http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/castmanual201408en.pdf (MB)