NLB and NKBM, the top two banks by market share, as well as the state-owned SID export and development bank are among the 130 systemic banks to be scrutinised by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Banking Authority (EBA).

Both NLB and NKBM were among the eight Slovenian banks that underwent stress tests and asset quality reviews in 2013, leading to their recapitalisation, renationalisation and the transfer of non-performing loans to the bad bank.

The third bank included in ECB stress tests, SID, was not subjected to last year's national stress tests since it does not have retail operations and mostly does business insuring export deals and financing corporate development projects.

All three banks are deemed sufficiently capitalised, although the share of non-performing loans on the books of NLB and NKBM is still quite high, at about a quarter the total loan portfolio.

However, the ECB exercise, undertaken before it assumes direct supervision of systemic euro area banks on 4 November, is not entirely comparable to the 2013 operation.

The Slovenian stress tests were based on data for 2012 and the ECB stress tests are using data as at the end of 2013; the assumptions for baseline and adverse scenarios are different as well and it is believed the assumptions used by the ECB are stricter.

The scenarios are based on a set of assumptions about the macroeconomic environment over a three-year period.

The starting point of the exercise is 31 December 2013; accordingly, macroeconomic forecasts and indicators such as yield spreads on that day have been taken into account.

For Slovenia, this means that the analysis baseline is unfavourable, since economic growth has picked up faster than projected this year and the yield on treasury bonds, a gauge of sovereign default risk, was much higher at the end of 2013 than it is now.

The baseline scenario used for Slovenia thus assumes the economy will contract by 0.1% this year before returning to growth in 2015 (1.3%) and holding steady in 2016 (1.2%). The assumptions in the adverse scenario are even worse.

However, the European Commission has since significantly upgraded its forecast, to 0.8% growth this year and 1.4% in 2015.

Under the ECB stress tests, a bank will be given a pass if its Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio is at or above 8% under the baseline scenario and 5.5% under the adverse scenario.

Banks that are found to have a capital shortfall will have two weeks to present a plan to the ECB, which in turn will inform them within another two weeks how much additional capital they actually need.

The ECB feedback will take into account any measures which banks might have undertaken in the course of 2014 to improve their balance sheet; accordingly, even banks with a capital shortfall may actually require less additional capital than the headline figures show or theoretically none at all.

If they are indeed found to be undercapitalised and need fresh money, they will be given six to nine months to secure the capital, depending on each individual case.

The banks involved received preliminary indications of their results on Thursday.

Foreign media reports suggest a majority of the banks will pass the stress tests, though some unconfirmed reports speculate that banks in Austria, Portugal, Italy and Belgium could fail.

There have been no reports about any Slovenian banks failing.

Janko Medja, chief executive of NLB, said on Wednesday that the bank's portfolio was adequately provisioned and expected "small deviations, if any" compared to the tests carried out in 2013.

The results will be released around midday and the central bank, Banka Slovenije, is due to hold a press conference in the afternoon.