Even in the UK, where the Financial Services Authority submitted the country’s largest banks to a series of stress tests, details remain scarce. The FSA says it wants banks to have a core “tier one” ratio – a measure of capital that excludes preference shares and other hybrid instruments – of at least 4 per cent of their assets under a stressed scenario. But it has not said what that scenario involves.
How severe is the state of Europe’s banks in any event? The answer depends on the losses the banks have yet to recognise in their accounts and the amount of profit they can generate in coming years to absorb those losses. In the absence of other data, the most credible estimate of future losses so far has come from the IMF, which set out detailed forecasts in its global financial stability report, published last month.
To start with the American comparison: the IMF estimates that US banks would together have to write off about $550bn (€404bn, £362bn) over the next two years. This turned out to be roughly the same as the $600bn in losses that US regulators believe the country’s 19 largest banks will have to absorb – though the US estimate is based on a more adverse outlook for the economy than currently expected.