Mr. Gerry Rice, Director of the Communications Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today:

"The IMF welcomes the successful completion of the ECB’s Comprehensive Assessment of banks in the euro area. The exercise has used a common framework to assess the capital needs of banks and marks the substantial progress that has been achieved towards a banking union. The high level of transparency and comparability of the results will enable market participants to make their own assessments of bank health, which should help boost confidence. Altogether, the exercise provides an important basis for further strengthening bank balance sheets, dealing with weak institutions, and additional lending to support the recovery.

"We agree with the ECB that this is an important first step and support its determination to repeat the exercise annually and constantly enhance the process."