{"id":30063,"date":"2013-01-17T12:12:43","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T10:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=30063"},"modified":"2013-01-17T12:41:43","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T10:41:43","slug":"sa-banks-downgraded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/30063\/sa-banks-downgraded\/","title":{"rendered":"SA banks downgraded"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fitch<\/a> has downgraded the ratings of South Africa’s banks following similar action taken on the country’s sovereign debt.<\/p>\n

The viability ratings (VR) of Absa Bank<\/a>, FirstRand<\/a>, Investec<\/a>, Nedbank<\/a>, and Standard Bank<\/a> have been downgraded by one notch following the one-notch downgrade of South Africa’s foreign currency issuer default rating (IDR) to ‘BBB’.<\/p>\n

The downgrade of the banks’ VRs reflects the major banks’ concentration to South Africa; a high proportion of liquid assets invested in government securities; and a weakening operating environment as indicated by the downgrade of the sovereign rating, Fitch, the ratings firm said.<\/p>\n

The sovereign rating is now effectively acting as a cap on these banks\u00a0viability ratings\u00a0at this level because of their strong links with South Africa, Fitch said.<\/p>\n

It added that the downgrade of the sovereign has also resulted in a re-calibration of the South African National Rating Scale, which has affected several other institutions in the country.<\/p>\n

While all the banks’ VR were downgraded, Absa’s long-term IDR remained the same, and it’s national long-term rating was upgraded to AAA.<\/p>\n

South African bank ratings (01\/2013)<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Bank<\/strong><\/td>\nVisibility rating
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		Long-term issuer default rating
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Standard Bank<\/td>\nBBB<\/span><\/td>\nBBB<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Absa<\/td>\nBBB<\/span><\/td>\nA-<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
FirstRand<\/td>\nBBB<\/span><\/td>\nBBB<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Investec<\/td>\nBBB-<\/span><\/td>\nBBB-<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nedbank<\/td>\nBBB<\/span><\/td>\nBBB<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

On 10 January 2013 Fitch downgraded South Africa\u2019s sovereign debt by one notch to \u2018BBB\u2019 and added that the outlook was stable.<\/p>\n

“Economic growth performance and prospects have deteriorated, affecting the public finances and exacerbating social and political tensions,\u201d Fitch said, explaining the key reason for its action.<\/p>\n

The cut brought Fitch\u2019s rating of South Africa\u2019s sovereign debt in line with Standard & Poor\u2019s<\/a>, which cut South Africa\u2019s credit rating to \u2018BBB\u2019 (or Baa2) in October 2012 due to job layoffs, slowed growth and a negative knock-on impact on the financial and socio-economic position of the country.<\/p>\n

More on credit ratings<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Fitch cuts SA credit rating<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Rating SA\u2019s socio-economic minefield<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

S&P cuts South Africa\u2019s rating<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Joburg gets credit rating downgrade<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fitch has downgraded the ratings of South Africa’s banks following similar action taken on the country’s sovereign debt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,25,4088,2510,1498,1799,499],"class_list":["post-30063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-absa","tag-active","tag-firstrand","tag-fitch","tag-investec","tag-nedbank","tag-standard-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30063"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30068,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30063\/revisions\/30068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}