UK banks pass BoE stress tests

All seven UK lenders in the Bank of England’s 2019 stress tests would have enough capital to weather a new financial crisis – though they would have to restrict shareholder giveaways to do so.

The aggregate Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital ratio for the seven banks – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide, RBS, Santander UK and Standard Chartered – fell to 9.9% under the BoE’s severe stress scenario, from an end-2018 starting level of 14.5%. The hurdle rate to pass was 7.5%.

But the minimum