Outcome of the exercise for Spanish banks  a)  Of the 15 Spanish banks assessed, 14 have passed the examination, i.e. they exceed the minimum capital required in the three phases of the exercise. One bank, Liberbank, does not reach the minimum 8% ratio set for the comprehensive assessment, standing at 7.8%, i.e. 0.2 pp below the minimum required. b)  This bank has already concluded a capital increase for an amount exceeding € million, meaning that it has already made good the shortfall. c)  The remaining banks comfortably meet the minimum requirements in all the phases of the exercise. 8. Interpretation of the results  The result of the asset quality review – which, unlike the stress tests, is not based on scenarios or future assumptions, but is a detailed review of the balance sheets at end-year 2013 to verify that they give a true and fair view of the position of the banks – shows that it is the Spanish banks that have had to make fewer adjustments, less than 0.2% of risk-weighted assets. The findings of the stress tests are somewhat more difficult to compare, because the scenarios used differ from country to country. But the results obtained show that all the Spanish banks would be resilient in a hypothetical, very severe scenario. In recent years, Spanish banks have substantially written down real estate developmentrelated assets, especially following the requirements of Royal Decree-Laws 2/2012 and 18/2012.
Additionally, in the second half of 2012 they were subject under the Assistance Programme for Spain’s financial system agreed with the European Union to an exhaustive accounting review and a stress test, the result of which led to the recapitalisation and restructuring of certain banks. Moreover, during 2013 several measures were taken to ensure that adequate provisioning levels were maintained, which included, most notably, the review of refinanced and restructured loans. –  As a result of the criteria issued by the Banco de España in 2013 for the proper classification of these operations, Spanish banks reclassified under an inferior category operations amounting to € billion, which required approximately € billion of additional provisions. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  –  To sum up, between 1 January 2008 and 30 June 2014 the provisioning drive by Spanish banks amounted to € billion, that is to say, provisions amounting to the equivalent of 25% of Spain’s GDP in 2013. Given all these measures, the starting point for Spanish banks was expected to be generally better than that of those in the other European countries as a whole regarding the more demanding criteria for recording assets. And, the outcome of the Comprehensive Assessment which has just been published confirms these expectations. 9. Conclusions  The disclosure of the results today marks the end of a period of just under one year in which all the parties involved – the ECB, the national authorities, the auditors and the banks themselves – have made a sterling effort.