Fitch: No Change in UK Bank Capital Plans Following Stress Tests

 After its latest stress tests, the Bank of England's (BoE) assessment is that the UK banking sector is adequately capitalised and the results will not force any capital planning revisions. Further sector-wide capital step-ups are unlikely in future, says Fitch Ratings. The results are consistent with our views on UK bank capital adequacy, already factored into our ratings.

Capital ratios are likely to remain stable, held up by the BoE's increased use of countercyclical buffers. These will be built up as lending growth accelerates and will be released when the cycle turns. The BoE's intention is that banks' capital planning should become more efficient and flexible. The BoE's Financial Policy Committee indicated that it considers a Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio of 11% to be appropriate for the sector. We expect banks to set their internal buffers relative to this level and plan their capital needs relative to the level of sensitivity to stress test inputs.

Results from yesterday's stress test show that, under the baseline scenario, the seven participating banks are improving their capital positions. But the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS; BBB+/Stable) and Standard Chartered (A+/Negative) did not meet the BoE's capital requirements under the stress scenario. Both banks have taken, or are taking steps this year to address capitalisation.

The regulator will use future stress test results to assess individual banks' capital requirements. We expect the tests to become more sophisticated and more qualitative in nature. This is already the case in the US where the Federal Reserve's annual Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review plays an important role in how the country's leading banks assess their capital planning exercises.

In the UK, annual cyclical tests will be run to capture risks from financial cycles, with the severity of scenarios increasing as risks build up. This should produce more rounded stressed results. Latent risks not captured by the annual cyclical scenario will be introduced every other year when the BoE will run a biannual stress test. We think the banks should, over time, be able to anticipate broad movements in the annual cyclical scenario, making it easier for them to set internal buffers above minimum regulatory requirements, based on their expected sensitivity to the regulatory stress test.

The 2015 stress test hurdles - a 4.5% common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio and a 3% leverage ratio - were not particularly onerous. All participating banks met these. But hurdle rates will evolve and banks will need to meet their Pillar 1 minimum CET1 ratios under stressed scenarios, plus any additional requirements set by the regulators under Pillar 2A and buffers for systemically important banks.