set in place, both by the ecb and by national authorities, we were able to ensure that the results of the exercise met high standards and were reasonably comparable across banks from different countries. moreover, the comprehensive assessment is, undoubtedly, a major step forward in terms of transparency, significantly increasing the amount, quality and consistency of the information available about the position of european banks. 5. minimum levels of capital required. a ) minimum thresholds of common equity tier 1 ( cet1 ) capital were set, as defined under the basel iii accord, that have to be exceeded both in the comprehensive assessment, and in the baseline scenario of the stress test ( 8 % ) ; and another minimum threshold that has to be exceeded in the adverse scenario of the stress test ( 5. 5 % ). b ) the banks falling short have to submit, within two weeks, a recapitalisation plan to be implemented within six months ( if the capital shortfall arises from the asset bis central bankers ’ speeches review or from the baseline scenario in the stress test ) or nine months ( if the capital shortfall arises from the adverse scenario ). 6. results at the european level the results just disclosed show that, according to the methodology used, in the banking systems as a whole that are to be supervised by the single supervisory mechanism – the ecb and the national supervisory authorities – 25 banks have a capital shortfall, assessed against the three thresholds set ( in the aqr and in the baseline and adverse scenarios of the stress test ). of these 25 banks, 12 have already increased capital in 2014 to make good the shortfall, meaning there are only 13 banks that have to submit their plans to redress capital inadequacy. in total, the shortfall of these 25 banks amounted to €24. 6 billion, but bearing in mind the capital increases already made, the shortfall currently stands at only €9. 5 billion. 7. outcome of the exercise for spanish banks a ) of the 15 spanish banks assessed, 14 have passed the examination, i. e. they exceed the minimum capital required in the three phases of the exercise. one bank, liberbank, does not reach the minimum 8 % ratio set for the comprehensive assessment, standing at 7. 8 %, i. e. 0. 2 pp below the minimum required. b ) this bank has already concluded a capital increase for an amount exceeding €600 million, meaning that it has already made good the short

and rules should be open and non - proprietary so as to prevent closed markets. but it is also clear that the scope for cooperation needs to be delineated carefully from that for competition. the optimum balance between the cooperative and the competitive space is as hard to find as that between efficiency and consumer convenience, on the one hand, and security and reliability, on the other. it is of paramount interest of the public authorities that the right balance is struck between these poles. generally, it is more efficient to foster competition on the basis of common standards than to foster competition for standards. however, it has to be ensured that these common standards do not end up as being the lowest common denominator. therefore, public authorities regard it as their responsibility to look carefully into this balance between competition and cooperation, and interfere whenever required. that having been said, i would like to reiterate the eurosystem ’ s support for the creation both of bis central bankers ’ speeches rulebooks and frameworks for retail payments in general and of a framework for, and measures to ensure the interoperability of, existing online e - payment schemes in particular, provided these are based on transparent and open standards that allow other communities / schemes to join if they wish to do so. fostering european direction at the global level in my final point, i will take a further step back from the level of detail of the discussion of sepa. in the day - to - day business, we tend to focus, to a large extent, on the difficulties we are facing along the road towards making sepa reality. when reading the documentation on sepa, i have often found the phrase “ yes … but ” : yes, the indicator for migration to the sepa credit transfer is growing, but not fast enough ; yes, the sepa direct debit is available, but it is hardly used ; yes, the proposed regulation will fix a migration end - date, but it is too early ; and so on. of course, we have to deal with problems and obstacles, but for a few minutes at least, let us focus, for a change, on what has been achieved. sepa is an unprecedented initiative to harmonise cashless retail payments across countries, with the added difficulty of replacing existing and widely accepted national payment instruments. sepa is not limited by the borders of either the euro area or the eu. iceland, norway, liechtenstein, switzerland and monaco are part of sepa, enabling cashless euro