AFP
Photo/Emmanuel Dunand
Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/business/news/s-and-p-spain-banks-rating-529/
The US-based Standard & Poor’s rating agency has cut
credit ratings of 15 Spanish banks including the country’s largest Banco
Santander SA and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), following the national
rating cut last week.
“The sovereign downgrade has direct negative rating
implications on those banks that we rated higher than the 'BBB-' long-term
rating on Spain, and on all banks where we factored extraordinary government
support into the ratings,” the S&P said in a statement.
The S&P has lowered long-term ratings on 11 banks and
the short-term ratings on four. Santander saw its long-term counterparty credit
rating lowered by two levels from A- to BBB with a negative outlook. The
S&P has also cut by one notch the ratings on CaixaBank, and its parent
company Caja de Ahorros y Pensiones de Barcelona (La Caixa), Banco de Sabadell,
Banco Popular Espanol, Bankia, and Banco Financiero y de Ahorros (BFA).
The ratings for six banks such as BFA, and Ibercaja have
been put on Creditwatch negative, the agency said in a statement Tuesday. The
S&P will continue reviewing the sovereign downgrade’s implications, and is
going to conclude the process next month, the company said. “For Santander
and BBVA, we don’t anticipate that we would lower” its ratings further, if
at all, the S&P said after the review.
The rating action came a few days after Spain was
downgraded by two notches to BBB-, one level above junk by the S&P after
Madrid announced a fifth austerity package in less than a year and published
details about stress tests of its banks. The Spanish government's options for
averting a financial crisis are limited by a grinding recession, high
unemployment and social unrest, S&P said in a statement.
Earlier this year Moody’s rating agency downgraded 28
Spanish banks and the Fitch credit agency has cut ratings of 18 lenders
following Spain's sovereign rating downgrades.
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