BBVA, one of Europe’s most resilient banks in the 2025 stress tests
BBVA has once again excelled in the stress test results published by the European Banking Authority (EBA) for the 2025-2027 period. This exercise takes place every two years and assesses banks’ ability to maintain minimum levels of capital and own funds in two scenarios: a baseline and an adverse scenario. In the baseline scenario, BBVA would generate 355 basis points of capital from December 2024 to December 2027, reaching a fully loaded CET1 ratio of 16.43 percent. In the adverse scenario, BBVA would lose 186 basis points of capital to reach a fully loaded CET1 ratio of 11.02 percent in December 2027. The impact of the adverse scenario on BBVA’s capital would be well below the average for the group of comparable European banks, demonstrating the Group’s strength and resilience.
The 2025 stress test assesses the performance of European Union (EU) banks in a baseline scenario and in an adverse scenario for a three year period, from 2025 to 2027. The exercise included a sample from 64 banks (51 eurozone banks), covering 75 percent of all banking assets in the EU and Norway.
This year’s exercise is designed to assess the resilience of the European banking sector in the current macroeconomic environment, which the EBA considers uncertain and evolving. The adverse scenario simulates heightened geopolitical tension, causing a cumulative decline in GDP of 6.3 percent in the EU. It assumes severe, negative and persistent disruptions in trade and confidence, with adverse effects on private consumption and investment.
In the adverse scenario, BBVA’s fully loaded CET1 ratio would decline by 218 basis points in the first year, reaching a minimum of 10.70 percent on December 31, 2025. Over the following two years, BBVA’s fully loaded CET1 ratio would recover, reaching 11.02 percent by December 31, 2027. Thus, the capital loss over the three years would be 186 basis points, which stands out very favorably with the average of BBVA’s comparable European banks¹ (228 basis points down to 10.01 percent) and highlights the strength of the Group.
Meanwhile, in the baseline scenario, BBVA would create 355 basis points of capital, reaching a fully loaded CET1 ratio of 16.43 percent.
In the adverse scenario, taking the phased-in CET1 ratio as a reference, BBVA would also have a capital loss of 186 basis points, significantly outperforming its European competitors, whose average phased-in CET1 would be reduced by 302 basis points.
BBVA has improved its resilience compared to the 2023 stress test, when the impact on capital in the adverse scenario reached 295 basis points for 2023-2025.