U.K. Treasury Refuses to Release Stress Tests on RBS, Lloyds

U.K. Treasury Refuses to Release Stress Tests on RBS, Lloyds

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. refused to release the results of stress tests conducted on British banks, two weeks after the Federal Reserve said similar reviews showed 10 U.S. lenders needed to raise a total of $74.6 billion.

Publishing the information may increase instability and force the government to take further action to shore up the U.K. financial system, the Treasury said in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg News that sought the test results and criteria used to evaluate banks. U.S regulators said publishing their findings would ease concerns about lenders.

“Keeping the information under wraps will only serve to create more uncertainty in the long term,” Vince Cable, the opposition Liberal Democrats’ spokesman on treasury issues, said in an e-mailed statement. “We need a system that is as open and as transparent as that in the United States.”

The Financial Services Authority carried out stress tests on U.K. banks earlier this year to determine their ability to withstand losses amid the worst recession in 60 years. Barclays Plc is the only bank to have disclosed its results, saying the in will continue to meet the regulator’s capital requirements under various credit risk, market risk and economic scenarios.

Disclosure of the results “at this time may lead to uncertainty in financial markets, either in relation to specific institutions or more generally,” the Treasury said in its response to Bloomberg. “Such instability could require further action by the authorities.”

The same request to the FSA was rejected on the grounds it would be too costly to retrieve the documents. Lesley Richardson, an FSA freedom of information officer, said the results wouldn’t be released in any case because the information was confidential.

Bank Aid

The U.K. has committed as much as 1.4 trillion pounds ($2.2 trillion) to bolster the nation’s banking system through direct investments, asset insurance and underwriting loans. The government has nationalized Northern Rock Plc and Bradford & Bingley Plc, and taken controlling stakes Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc.

The scenarios used to test Barclays’ assets included a 50 percent drop in U.K. house prices and a recession lasting two years, the Financial Times reported in March, without saying where it got the information. Alistair Smith, a Barclays spokesman, declined to comment.

The Federal Reserve gave banks six months to fill any capital shortfalls identified by the U.S. tests or face expanded federal ownership. At the time, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said releasing the findings should reassure investors about the soundness of the financial system.

Transparency Questioned

“The transparency of companies over the last few months has significantly improved so it is ironic that the one body who isn’t joining in the transparency is the regulator itself,” said Ian Gordon, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas in London.

Representatives of RBS, Lloyds, Northern Rock and HSBC Plc declined to comment on whether they passed the U.K.’s stress tests when contacted by Bloomberg News.

Bank stress test results should be made public to improve risk management, Andrew Haldane, executive director for financial stability at the Bank of England, said in a speech to in February.

“There is a case for having these results set out regularly in firms’ public reports,” he said. “Having a standardized, published set of such stress-testing results would help improve financial markets’ understanding and hence pricing of bank-specific risk.”

Halden wasn’t available for comment yesterday.

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