With just 70 minutes to go to the official announcement from the European Central Bank, the Slog understands that leaks from those involved in the process are suggesting much of the sovereign debt assessed in the eurobanks stress-test will be, effectively, ignored.

An internal ECB document on methodology confirms that the tests were ‘applied to the trading book portfolios only, as no default assumption was considered’.

Forget the jargon: this means that liability until the end or maturity of such loans has not been included. As not many people are going to buy a junk bond off a eurobank (except the mad ECB itself) this is a patently enormous hole in the methodology per se.

“This is the final straw” said a Madrid dealer, who was also aware of the leaks.

“Whatever shred of credibility these clowns ever had just went out the window” remarked a UK-based credit manager.

Bloomberg also carries the story, with Win Thin (a senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York) telling the respected business website that this omission “allows banks to basically underestimate their exposure to distressed peripheral debt”.

We’re unaware at the time of posting what effect if any this has had on the markets, but the announcement time itself – 5pm GMT just before a weekend – is typically cycnical: most of Europe is an hour ahead of London and markets will thus have closed.