A comprehensive balance sheet assessment will be a crucial preparatory step before we begin our new supervisory task in autumn 2014. This will serve to strengthen transparency and to mitigate the risk of the possible emergence of problem banks in the early days of operation of the new supervisory mechanism.
This balance sheet assessment, to be conducted by the ECB together with national supervisors and an independent third party, will consist of a supervisory risk assessment and a thorough asset quality review that in turn will be an input for a stress test to be jointly carried out with the European Banking Authority (EBA).