The Bank of England has been forced to defend its decision to limit its annual bank stress test to the major banks, CNBC reports. The BoE said the focus on the major banks was appropriate because they accounted for 80 per cent of lending but some commentators accused the BoE of softening its regulatory stance in response to political pressure. Critics of the BoE have pointed to a recent decision by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, to reverse the burden of proof for misconduct by senior bank executives. BoE governor Mark Carney said the central bank was focusing its resources on the banks that had the biggest impact on the economy. A research paper commissioned by the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, a self-described "independent network of banks and banking cooperatives with a shared mission to use finance to deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental development," shows that following these principles delivers better financial returns than those returned by the Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions in recent years. For instance, SFBs rely much more on client deposits to fund their balance sheets in comparison with GSIFIs. This reliance on customer deposits reduces the liquidity risk of strategies that result in a much higher proportion of lending on SFBs' balance sheets (75 per cent) than for GSIFIs (40 per cent). In a dispute between a Swedish bitcoin forum operator and the country's tax office, the European Court of Justice has ruled that virtual currency transactions should be exempt from value added tax. In its decision, the Court of Justice said bitcoin transactions should be treated in the same way as fiat currency, "under the provision concerning transactions relating to currency, bank notes and coins used as legal tender." Member states had previously come to their own decisions on the VAT-status of bitcoin, with Poland levying a 23 per cent VAT charge and the UK making bitcoin trading exempt from VAT in a ruling in March.