Fitch downgrades ratings for 4 Romanian banks

This decision could lead to a rise in the cost of financing which the respective banks could request from external markets. Furthermore, Fitch affirmed at “A minus” the long-term outlooks in foreign currency for all of the aforementioned banks. Main reasons are institutional support which each of these banks can obtain from the mother group, and Romania’s country threshold, set at “A-”.

For BCR, long-term foreign and local currency outlooks were affirmed at “A-” and short-term foreign currency outlooks were affirmed at “F2”. Individual outlooks are affirmed at “C/D,” and support outlooks at “1”.

BRD has the same ratings as BCR for local and foreign currency outlooks, and for support ratings.

Bancpost’s long-term foreign currency rating was affirmed at “A-” and its short-term foreign currency rating was affirmed at “F2”. Its individual rating is “D” and the support rating is “1”.

UniCredit Tiriac’s long-term foreign currency rating was changed to “A-” its short-term foreign currency rating to “F2”, while the support rating stands at “1”. The individual rating is still being evaluated.

Fitch estimates that Romania’s current account deficit in 2008 will be 14 percent of GDP. The agency changed Romania’s long-term foreign and local currency outlooks from stable to negative. Long-term foreign currency outlooks were changed to “BBB” /Negative, while long-term local currency outlooks changed from Stable to Negative at “BBB plus”. Short-term foreign currency outlooks were affirmed “F3” and the country threshold at “A-”.