Greece's ATEbank says it has failed EU stress tests

ATHENS — Greece's ATEBank said on Friday it had fallen short of an EU-wide health checkup to determine lenders' chances of survival in another financial crisis.One of the country's smallest credit institutions, and dragged down by loans to ailing agricultural companies, the bank said it had come 242.6 million euros (312 million dollars) short of an extreme-case scenario on capital ratio."The test results show a deficit of 242.6 million euros in Tier 1 capital in relation to the six-percent threshold set for the exercise," the bank said in a statement.It added that a sovereign debt crisis scenario had sunk its Tier 1 capital ratio to 4.36 percent.ATEBank in the first quarter of 2010 posted a net loss of 37.4 million euros. It is the subject of a buyout bid by the country's fourth-largest lender Piraeus Bank, which on Friday said it had just scraped through the worst-case scenario of the EU-wide tests.In all, 91 banks accounting for 65 percent of European banking activity were tested by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors which are tasked with giving advice to the European Commission on policy and regulatory issues related to banking supervision.The tests were intended to remove clouds of suspicion and uncertainty about the true state of many banks in Europe, and therefore the risk of a lack of confidence causing a domino effect. Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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