One in five of EU’s top lenders failed ECB’s health checks

Roughly one in five of the eurozone’s top lenders failed landmark health checks at the end of last year but most have since repaired their finances, the European Central Bank said yesterday.

The ECB found the most critical problems to be in Italy, Cyprus, and Greece but concluded that banks’ capital holes had since chiefly been plugged, and that only €10bn remained to be raised.

Italy’s financial sector faces the biggest challenge, with nine of its banks falling short. Monte dei Paschi had the largest capital hole to fill at €2.1bn, even after its money-raising efforts this year.