03 October 2016

Bank of England: Stress testing results timetable

2016 stress test results

On 29 March 2016, Bank of England (BoE) set out details of the scenario for the stress test for the seven major UK banks and building societies (Barclays plc, HSBC Holdings plc, Lloyds Banking Group plc, Nationwide Building Society, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Santander UK plc and Standard Chartered plc). It was agreed by Financial Policy Committee (FPC) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) Board.

The 2016 stress test assesses the resilience of the UK banking system to a severe slowdown in the UK and global economies. The stress scenario incorporated in BoE’s concurrent stress test is not a forecast. Rather, it is a coherent ‘tail risk’ scenario designed to be severe and broad enough to assess the resilience of UK banks to a severe shock.  

BoE has received firms’ initial stress-testing submissions and is in the process of analysing the results. The FPC and the PRA Board will discuss that analysis over the autumn. Final decisions on the results of the stress tests will be made by both committees on 29 November 2016 and will be fed back to the firms involved on the same day. BoE will publish the UK stress test results alongside its Financial Stability Report at 7am (GMT) on 30 November.

2017 biennial exploratory scenario

Consistent with the approach set out in October 2015, next year BoE‘s stress test of major banks will for the first time include two scenarios. In addition to the annual cyclical scenario, which is intended to assess the risks to the banking system emanating from the financial cycle, there will be an additional ‘exploratory’ scenario. This will allow BoE to assess banks’ resilience to a wider range of potential threats. 

The seven banks taking part in the 2016 stress test will participate in both these scenarios in 2017.

The BoE will publish the exploratory scenario alongside the 2017 annual cyclical scenario in the first quarter of 2017.

Press release

© Bank of England