The exercise assesses the foreseeable position of banks in two scenarios: one, a baseline or more likely scenario (a macroeconomic scenario approved by the European Commission); the second, an adverse – and severe but not impossible –  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  scenario (set by the European Systemic Risk Board), in the period 2014–2016. The consolidated balance sheets at year-end 2013 were taken as the starting point for the exercise. 3. Scope of the exercise  The comprehensive assessment examined 130 banks from 19 countries. The main data from the exercise as follows: –  The assets reviewed account for 81.6% of the total assets of banks supervised by the Single Supervisory Mechanism. The remaining assets, somewhat more than 18.4%, are assets of banks supervised indirectly by the Single Supervisory Mechanism. –  15 Spanish banks were examined, accounting for 90% of the assets of Spanish deposit-taking institutions. –  Along with teams from all the supervisory authorities, including naturally the Banco de España, consultancies, appraisers, audit firms and, evidently, the banks themselves under examination all participated. –  More than 6,000 experts, 600 of whom in Spain, were involved at the European level. –  For Spain, the cost of the exercise was € million in total, of which € million correspond to the consultancy, Oliver Wyman, and € million to the audit firms and consultancies.
Brief description of the exercise  Before turning to the results, allow me briefly to recall the nature of the exercise. As you know, the Comprehensive Assessment comprised two components: an asset quality review and a stress test. Assessing asset quality involved a detailed review of bank balance sheets to determine, among other things, whether the classification of financial instruments, provisioning levels and the valuations of specific assets are appropriate. The process, conducted in a decentralised fashion, was very complex. It required the support of leading audit firms, and was subject to stringent quality assurance, where the national supervisory authorities – in our case the Banco de España – played a very important role. As a result of this part of the exercise, adjustments were made to the level of CET1 (i.e. maximum quality) capital, as defined under the Basel III Accord, which were taken into account to determine the starting point of the stress tests. The second key element of the Comprehensive Assessment was the stress test. This is an exercise that seeks to evaluate the resilience of banks in hypothetical scenarios. The stress test is an exercise basically prepared by the banks themselves, using the socalled bottom-up approach and applying the methodology of the European Banking Authority. The test was subject to strict quality assurance by the ECB and the national supervisory authorities.