BRUSSELS: Stress tests should be extended to major European financial institutions other than banks to help underpin the integrity of the region's financial system, the ECB's vice president, Vitor Constancio, said on Monday.
European banks underwent health checks last year to help make the financial system more resilient to economic crisis as the European Central Bank took over supervision of the euro zone's biggest lenders.
The tests are the first step towards more coordinated control of the single currency zone's financial system.
The European Commission is planning a wider capital markets union for the 28-nation EU bloc.
To help make that union a success, Constancio said, systemically important non-bank financial institutions - which include insurers, investment and pension funds but which he did not categorise in his speech - should be subject to similar testing.
"We need to curtail risks from these systemic players and raise their resilience through the financial cycle," he told a conference in Brussels.
"Additional liquidity requirements, guided stress tests and redemption fees should be part of the macro-prudential toolbox." Extending the remit of the ECB's supervisory role has been floated by policymakers but the political obstacles to doing so are significant.
The capital markets union is intended to make the EU's financial landscape less fragmented and more resilient to economic turbulence, as well as boosting growth by giving companies wider access to capital across the bloc.
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