Changes support assessment, affirms four others
International ratings agency Fitch has upgraded Al Khalij Commercial Bank (AKB), Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB) and Ahli Bank's (ABQ) long-term Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) to 'A' from 'A-'.
It also affirmed Commercial Bank of Qatar's (CBQ), Doha Bank's (DB) and Qatar Islamic Bank's (QIB) Long-term IDRs at 'A'.
Qatar National Bank's (QNB) Long-term IDR has been affirmed at 'A+'. The Outlooks on the Long-term IDRs are Stable. At the same time, Fitch has upgraded AKB's Viability Rating (VR) to 'bbb-' from 'bb+'. A full list of rating actions is at the end of this rating action commentary.
The upgrade of three banks is driven by a revision of their Support Rating Floors (SRFs), resulting from a change in Fitch's view of the drivers of Qatari sovereign support for domestic banks.
Fitch no longer believes that franchise and/or level of government ownership should necessarily lead to a difference in banks' SRFs in the case of Qatar.
Fitch expects that there is an extremely high probability that all rated Qatari banks that require support would receive it, irrespective of franchise and ownership, and have therefore equalised all banks' SRFs and IDRs at 'A', except for the flagship bank, QNB. The revision of the SRFs of these three Qatari banks is unrelated to Fitch's global review of the evolving support dynamics for banks.
© Emirates 24|7 2014
