国际英语新闻:IMF welcomes European bank stress test

WASHINGTON, July 15 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Friday that it welcomed the EU-wide stress test exercise carried out under the auspices of the European Bank Authority (EBA), but pressed for effective steps to address banking sector weaknesses.

The disclosure of the detailed information in line with the stress test results will allow market participants to form a considered view of the soundness of the banks participating in the test, Jose Vinals, financial counselor of the Washington-based IMF, said in a Friday statement.

"The outcome of the exercise reflects efforts made by individual institutions and national supervisory authorities to strengthen bank balance sheets, but more needs to be done," added Vinals, also director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF.

The IMF considers it important that national authorities have promptly committed to address the pockets of vulnerability detected through the stress test, and strongly advocates that the necessary measures are taken to address weaknesses not only in institutions that have "failed" the test, but also in those that have only narrowly passed it, said the IMF.

Eight out of 90 banks from 21 EU nations have failed the crucial stress test, the EBA said on Friday in a report.

The banks -- five from Spain, two from Greece and one from Austria -- fell below the capital threshold of five percent core tier 1 over two years' horizon, with an overall core tier 1 shortfall of 2.5 billion euros (about 3.53 billion U.S. dollars), said the EBA.

Another 16 EU banks had a narrow escape with a core tier 1 rate of between five and six percent, the EBA added.

The assessment was made based on each bank's statistics by the end of April this year.