Twelve Spanish lenders need to raise 15.2 billion euros ($21 billion) to meet new minimum capital levels or risk partial nationalization, the Bank of Spain said.

Twelve Spanish lenders need to raise 15.2 billion euros ($21 billion) to meet new minimum capital levels or risk partial nationalization, the Bank of Spain said.

Eight savings banks need to raise capital, including Galicia-based Novacaixagalicia, which needs to find 2.6 billion euros, the central bank said in a statement in Madrid today. Spanish units of Barclays Plc (BARC) and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) also need to raise funds and have committed to do so, the regulator said.

The Bank of Spain previously estimated the overall capital shortfall wouldn’t exceed 20 billion euros ($28 billion), or 2 percent of gross domestic product. The government, fighting to rein in the euro region’s third-largest budget deficit, wants most of that to be raised privately even as central bank Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said Feb. 21 that some lenders will ask the state-rescue fund FROB for help.

“If you look at the consensus numbers for how much capital is needed, then the 15 billion euros looks low,” said Daragh Quinn, a banks analyst at Nomura International in Madrid. “The key test now is how they will raise equity.”

The other savings banks that need to raise capital are Bankia -- a bank formed from a merger including Caja Madrid that needs 5.8 billion euros -- Banco Base, Banca Civica, Mare Nostrum, Catalunyacaixa, Caja Espana and Unnim, which said today it may tap the FROB. Madrid-based Bankinter SA (BKT) and Bankpyme must also seek funds and have committed to do so.

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