MILAN (Reuters) - Italian banks Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MI:BMPS) and Banca Carige (MI:CRGI) are likely to need additional capital to plug shortfalls found by the European Central Bank (ECB) in region-wide bank stress tests, according to a media report.
The lenders face capital gaps under the most severe of the ECB's stress-test scenarios and are unlikely to have raised enough cash this year to fill the hole, Bloomberg reported, citing a source who asked not to be identified.
Monte dei Paschi di Siena and Banca Carige declined to comment. The Bank of Italy also had no comment.
The ECB is carrying out the checks of how the biggest euro zone banks have valued their assets, and whether they have enough capital to weather another economic crash, before taking over as their supervisor. The results of the stress tests on 130 banks are due to be unveiled on Sunday.
Shares in Carige were down nearly 3 percent by 0709 GMT while Monte dei Paschi had fallen about 2 percent. Italy's banking stock index (FTIT8300) was down 0.8 percent.
On Wednesday Spanish news agency Efe reported that three banks in Greece, three Italian lenders and two Austrian ones are among those that preliminary data showed had failed the tests.
Efe gave no details of how much capital the banks would have to raise and said this could yet change as numbers could be revised at the last minute.
(Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic and Valentina Za; Editing by Pravin Char)