ECB Supervisory Board meets to examine bank vulnerabilities

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank has convened an unscheduled meeting of its Supervisory Board on Friday to discuss stress and vulnerabilities in the euro zone bank sector after a recent selloff in bank shares, a spokesperson said.

Bank stocks tumbled over the past week, spooked first by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the United States, then the selloff in Credit Suisse, which only ended after the Swiss National Bank provided a 50 billion Swiss franc ($54 billion)lifeline.

"The Supervisory Board is meeting to exchange views and to provide members with an update on recent developments in the banking sector," the spokesperson told Reuters.

The gathering follows a similar ad hoc meeting earlier this week and comes after the ECB raised interest rates by 50 basis points on Thursday.

One person familiar with the talks said that the purpose of the meeting was to monitor liquidity in the euro zone banking sector and watch for any vulnerability to a run on any bank.

He said he did not anticipate that the ECB would immediately take any action as a result.

Bank shares rebounded on Thursday after the liquidity line to Credit Suisse and they continued to rise on Friday, despite the ECB rate hike..

($1 = 0.9266 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by John O'Donnell and Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Toby Chopra)