‘Italy under pressure as nine banks fail stress tests’

The European Central Bank [ECB] published the results of its assessment of the 130 largest banks in the eurozone on 26 October, setting 11 of those banks a two-week deadline to explain how they would take remedial action to improve their balance sheets.
At the end of the test, which was conducted over the past year, “some 25 banks emerged with capital shortfalls,” Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena standing as the “biggest failure”, with 9 banks falling short, followed by Greece and Cyprus (3 banks each), Slovenia and Belgium (2 banks each), Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Austria (one bank each).
Reacting to the publication, —

officials at the Bank of Italy criticised parameters in regulatory stress tests as unrealistically harsh on Italian banks and disputed the exact number of failures.