G8 finmins duck commitment on bank stress tests

By Anna Willard

LECCE, Italy (Reuters) - Group of Eight finance ministers ducked a commitment to publishing bank stress tests on Saturday despite calls for Europe to follow North America's lead and release the test results.

The tests -- aimed at verifying how ready a bank is to resist major shocks -- were one of the more controversial subjects at the two-day meeting.

The United States and Canada have pushed for the Europeans to follow their lead and publish more detail on the state of their banks but a consensus on the best method and on whether test results should be published remained out of reach.

Deputies preparing the communique, which avoided any reference to the tests, debated the issue late into the night, officials said.

But ministers said while they had not agreed on the method or whether the results should be published, they saw eye to eye on the central goal of cleaning up the financial sector.

"I'm much less frustrated given conversations we've had last night and today in Lecce," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in a press conference after the meeting.

"There is an agreement that stress tests are important and they will be carried out...There is some disagreement on the way that stress test results should be reported. But there is a commitment to do stress testing."

"The Europeans are taking a slightly different approach to their banking system. What matters of course is what works," U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in an interview with the BBC after the meeting.