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These actions also include changes to Support Ratings, Support Rating Floors and Viability Ratings.
The rating actions include revisions to support assessments in conjunction with Fitch's review of sovereign support for banks globally announced in March 2014. The rating actions follow peer rating reviews in several European countries and sectors. For the US IDRs, the review includes considerations of the relative ratings of operating companies and holding companies.
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 commercial banks in the US, Switzerland, the European Union and Hong Kong. This is being balanced to a large extent by strengthened balance sheets and buffers to senior debtholders at banks, and progress with these has been taken into account in today's rating actions.
For banks with long-term, strategic state ownership, Fitch has conducted bespoke analysis of the likelihood of continued support for the individual banks given the increased regulatory and legal constraints.