Robustness, validity and significance of the ECB's asset quality review and stress test exercise

As we are moving toward a eurozone banking union, the European Central Bank (ECB) is going to take over the regulatory oversight of 128 banks in November 2014. To that end, the ECB conducted a comprehensive assessment of these banks, which included an asset quality review (AQR) and a stress test. The fundamental question is what will the financial condition of these banks be when the ECB commences its regulatory oversight? And, can the comprehensive assessment lead to a full repair of banks' balance sheets so that the ECB takes over financially sound banks and is the necessary regulation in place to facilitate this? Overall, the design of the assessment does not comprehensively deal with the problems in the financial sector and risks may remain that will pose substantial threats to financial stability in the eurozone.

Steffen, Sascha (2014), Robustness, validity and significance of the ECB's asset quality review and stress test exercise,