Seven out of 91 European banks fail stress test; ATEbank says it will increase share capital as required

Seven European banks, most of which coming from Spain, have failed the European union's stress test whose results were published on Friday. One of the banks that has failed the test, Greek ATE Bank, is also active in Romania. The seventh bank is the German Hypo Real Estate bank. These seven bank together would need around EUR 3.5 billion extra if the worst comes. ATE Bank, which is one of the smaller banks in Romania, would require an additional capital of EUR 242.6 million. Bank representatives have already said the financial institution will increase the capital to cover the needed amount and the Greek government, which is one of the shareholders in the bank, has already said it wanted to be part of the share capital raise. ATE Bank in Romania posted a net profit of EUR 0.2 million in the first quarter of the year, while in the same period of last year, the bank had a loss of EUR 1.2 million, Its total assets after the first quarter this year were of EUR 353 million, up EUR 17 million. The stress test organized the European Central Bank included 91 lenders in Europe and aimed at finding out whether banks would face possible recessions and losses on bonds issued by the EU member states.