Seven banks fail EU stress tests

The UK's four major banks have passed EU stress tests, although five Spanish banks failed, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) said.

RBS, Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays all passed the healthchecks, which assessed whether banks would be prepared for future economic downturns. But Spanish banks Diada, Espiga, Bianca Civica, Unnim and Cajasur all failed, as did German bank Hypo Real Estate and Greece's ATEBank. The banks that did not pass will now be required to hold more capital. Banks were assessed on three different scenarios; a benchmark stress, a more adverse macro-economic stress and a country-wide stress. UK banks are already required to meet the FSA's interim capital regime introduced in November 2008. This ...