MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's Banco BPM BAMI.MI, one of the banks that fared the worst in Europe-wide stress tests of the sector, said on Friday one-off costs had weighed on the outcome of the health check.

Banco BPM, born in 2017 from the merger of Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano, said costs linked to the merger were one-off in nature but the tests had treated them as recurring over three years.

The cumulative costs totaled more than 500 million euros and the bank said this meant the results could be misleading.