Fitch Ratings today lowered its ratings of Irish banks' Government-guaranteed senior unsecured notes to AA- from AA+.
Fitch also affirmed the Long-term Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) of Allied Irish Banks, Anglo Irish Bank, and Bank of Ireland at A-. The agency affirmed EBS Building Society and Irish Nationwide Building Society's long-term IDRs and support rating floors at BBB-.
On November 4th, Fitch lowered Ireland's long-term IDR to AA- from AA+, although the agency described Ireland's outlook is Stable.
In a statement, Fitch said the banks' support rating floors "continue to reflect the high probability of support from the Irish financial authorities, should it be required".
The short-term IDRs of AIB, BoI, EBS and INBS remained at F1+.
The agency said although it believed there has been no change to the propensity of the Irish government to support the banking system, its ability to do so has weakened as implied by the agency's downgrade of Ireland's sovereign long-term IDR.
"The government plans to remove risky real estate assets from the banks' balance sheets by introducing a scheme to be administered by the National Asset Management Agency. These measures are costly and Fitch incorporated their impact on government finances when it downgraded the country's Long-term IDR," Fitch said.