This Is Bad - Fitch Slashes Bank Ratings In Europe & Asia

Fitch Revises 9 Italian Banks' Support Rating Floors to 'No Floor'; IDRs Unchanged

Fitch Ratings-Milan/London-19 May 2015: Fitch Ratings has downgraded nine Italian banks' Support Ratings (SR) to '5' and revised their Support Rating Floors (SRF) to 'No Floor'. The affected banks are UniCredit S.p.A., Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., UBI Banca S.p.A, ICCREA Holding S.p.A., Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Banca Popolare di Sondrio, Credito Emiliano, Credito Valtellinese, and Banco di Desio e della Brianza.
The banks' other ratings are unaffected by these rating actions.
The rating actions are in conjunction with Fitch's review of sovereign support for banks globally, which the agency announced in March 2014. In line with its expectations announced in March last year and communicated regularly since then, Fitch believes legislative, regulatory and policy initiatives have substantially reduced the likelihood of sovereign support for US, Swiss and European Union commercial banks.
As a result, Fitch believes that, in line with our SR definition of '5', extraordinary external support while possible can no longer be relied upon for all nine banks.

 My view:

A complete list of the ratings is available on Fitch's site.  Many European and Asian banks have been downgraded due to less likelihood of "sovereign support".

To translate the statement into plain English, the government will not be supporting these banks, so "bail-ins" of your and my deposits will be used instead.

Now is a good time to closely examine the health of your bank.  

Are your deposits at risk?


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