Italy's most troubled lender, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), reportedly won European Central Bank (ECB) approval Friday to proceed with a plan to shore up its finances, hours before their poor state was due to be revealed by European financial stress tests, according to dpa. Paolo Salvadori, a member of MPS' board of auditors, confirmed the news to reporters after a long board meeting. When asked if the ECB had given its green-light, he said, according to the ANSA news agency: "Yes, yes of course." "Everything went well," board member Fiorella Bianchi confirmed, also according to ANSA. A second board member, Antonino Turicchi, said the approved plan was "solid," and indicated that a late rival rescue proposal submitted Thursday by Swiss bank UBS was rejected. MPS chief executive Fabrizio Viola was expected to elaborate on details at a later conference call.
