Standard & Poors Cut the Rating of 15 Italian Banks

August 8, 2012 Share Print 0

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Friday cut the ratings for 15 Italian banks, citing a potentially deeper and more prolonged recession in Italy than originally anticipated.

The ratings firm said the downgrading reflected “our view of increased credit risk for the Italian economy and its banks.”

The agency revised the economic risk score for Italy, one of the main components of its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment, to five from four.

“With Italy facing a potentially deeper and more prolonged recession that we had originally anticipated, we are of the view that the vulnerability of Italian banks to the impact of rising loan losses has increased due to the combined effect of mounting problem assets and reduced coverage of loan loss reserves,” S&P said in a statement.

The firm now thought a severe recession likely would increase Italian banks’ problem assets in 2012 and 2013 to levels higher than previously anticipated, and higher than other banks in Europe.

Banks like Unione di Banche Italiane, Banca Popolare dell’ Emilia Romagna and Banca Popolare di Vicenza saw their ratings downgraded.

via Xinhua

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.