Lloyds Share News (LLOY)

Part-nationalised lenders Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group only just passed the minimum requirements in the Bank of England's (BoE) assessments of banks' balance sheets in a hypothetical economic downturn.The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) was testing banks against their resilience to a very severe housing market shock and a sharp rise or snap-back in interest rates.It required lenders to hold a minimum common-equity tier-1 (CET1) capital ratio of 4.5% in the most severe economic scenario.Seven out of eight of the UK's largest banks and building societies passed the requirements - the Co-operative Bank was the only one to fail - though RBS and Lloyds only managed to scrape through with CET1s of 4.6% and 5.0% respectively.Marc Kimsey, a trade at Accendo Markets, said that the stress tests exposed the "financial fragility" of the latter two banks.He said: "Unprecedented government support, quantitative easing and ultra-low interest rates for many years now, has resulted in a sorry, scraping through of the BoE stress tests."With challenging economic conditions ahead (no quantitative easing, rate increases, falling oil price) those with an obsession for reinstating a dividend could do with a health check of their own."Ewen Stevenson, the chief financial officer of RBS, said in a statement: "We recognise that there is still much work to be done to improve the resilience of our balance sheet."After an earlier rise, shares of RBS and Lloyds had dropped into the red on Tuesday morning in London.