The Italian Government acknowledges and accepts the outcome of the test aimed at verifying EU banks' capital adequacy with respect to possible adverse economic developments (stress test), carried out within the EU by competent national authorities and the European Banking Authority (EBA), in close connection with the European Central Bank, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) and the European Commission.
The Italian Government welcomes the enhanced transparency that has been achieved with the publication of these results and in the disclosure of the sovereign exposures of participating banking groups.
Resolute action to address investor perceptions of sustained weakness in the EU banking sector is an important part of the comprehensive response to the crisis, as endorsed by the European Council. In this context, the objective of the EU-wide stress test carried out across 91 banks for the period 2011-2012 is to assess the resilience of the EU banking system to adverse shocks.
It should be noted that the stress test, which is a regular element of the supervisory toolkit, is not a forecast. The purpose of the stress test is to provide a means to assess the resilience of participating banks to solvency pressures under a plausible but unlikely scenario of stress. In this way, the test results provide a measure of whether banks are sufficiently capitalised to weather adverse economic and financial conditions that go well beyond the likely outcomes.
In Italy, five banks, namely Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., Unicredit S.p.A., Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A., Banco Popolare S.C., Unione di Banche Italiane SCPA (UBI Banca), have directly participated in the EU-wide stress test. In anticipation of the stress test results, some of these banks have reinforced their capital from both private and public sources.
The results of the test indicate that all of these banks are adequately capitalised, with CT1 ratios significantly above the 5% benchmark under the stress scenario.
Italy is committed to safeguard financial stability and to contribute to further enhancing the resilience of the banking sector as part of a comprehensive EU-wide strategy.