Frankfurt, Germany • The European Central Bank warned Monday of a perilous year ahead as the sovereign debt crisis collides with slower economic growth and a dearth of market financing for banks.

The dire prediction, contained in the central bank’s twice-yearly report on the risks to the euro area financial system, came as European Union finance ministers fell about 50 billion euros short of their target for backstopping the region’s economies by channeling an additional 200 billion euros through the International Monetary Fund.

By some measures, the stresses on the European financial system are approaching or even exceeding levels last seen after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. But the central bank deliberately avoided discussing one risk that clearly weighs on many investors, economists and political leaders, the possibility that the eurozone could break up.

"I have no doubt about the euro," Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, told members of the European Parliament in Brussels. "The one currency is irreversible."

U.S. stock markets took a late-afternoon fall after the finance ministers failed to come up with the full amount of money pledged for a bailout fund.

Banks led the way down. Morgan Stanley dropped 5.5 percent and Bank of America Corp. sank 4 percent, the biggest falls in the Dow Jones Industrial average. The worry looming over banks stocks is that if Europe’s debt crisis spins out of control, European banks would fail and damage U.S. banks. Big banks in Europe and the U.S. are linked through the web of global financial markets.

The Dow lost 100.13 points, or 0.8 percent to close at 11,766.26. The average lost 55 points in the last hour of trading. The cautious comments from Draghi also helped push stocks lower. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 14.31 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,205.35. The Nasdaq composite index fell 32.19 points, or 1.3 percent, to 2,523.14.

Several negative developments are converging to raise tensions even higher than they already are, the central bank said in its report. In the first three months of 2012 banks will need to roll over more than 200 billion euros in debt at the same time that governments and corporations also have unusually high financing needs. Yet investors have become pessimistic about Europe, and the market for bonds issued by banks is nearly lifeless.

Although the non-euro members Poland, the Czech Republic and Sweden said they would be willing to contribute to the fund, another — Britain — said it would not decide until early in the new year, according to a statement released by the finance ministers.

Before the meeting Monday, Britain had made clear that it would put in money only as part of a broader contribution by the Group of 20 leading economies.