European regulators will pay close to half a billion euros to consultancy firms and auditors for their work on the region’s health check of its biggest banks, with a large portion of these costs being passed on to the lenders themselves, according to Financial Times research.

The European Central Bank and eight national regulators, including the eurozone’s five largest economies, will spend up to €487.7m on fees to external advisers for the comprehensive assessment, a screening of the region’s 128 biggest lenders.

Policy makers hope the exercise will help to restore investors’ confidence in the region’s troubled banking sector. The ECB, which takes charge of banking supervision later this year, has said the assessment is a “necessary first step” for establishing a safer, pan-European banking union.