{"id":133941,"date":"2017-11-25T02:21:18","date_gmt":"2017-11-25T07:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=133941"},"modified":"2017-11-25T02:21:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T07:21:18","slug":"moodys-upgrades-pnb-rcbc-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/11\/25\/moodys-upgrades-pnb-rcbc-ratings\/","title":{"rendered":"Moody’s upgrades PNB, RCBC ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"During<\/a>
Philippine National Bank (Photo by Philippine National Bank, Fair use<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u00a0 — Debt watcher Moody\u2019s Investors Service has upgraded its ratings on the Philippine National Bank (PNB) and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), citing the government\u2019s ability to help financial institutions if needed and the stable domestic operating environment.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the debt rater hiked the two banks\u2019 foreign currency deposit ratings from Baa3\/P-3 to Baa2\/P-2 and both have been given Stable outlooks.<\/p>\n

PNB\u2019s local currency deposit rating was also upped from Baa3\/P-3 to Baa2\/P-2 while RCBC\u2019s senior unsecured debt and senior unsecured MTN program rating was raised to Baa2 and (P)Baa2 from Baa3 and (P)Baa3 and the bank’s other short-term rating to (P)P-2 from (P)P-3.<\/p>\n

The credit rater also hiked the two banks\u2019 baseline credit assessments (BCAs) and adjusted BCAs to baa3 from ba1.<\/p>\n

Upgrade of PNB\u2019s BCA was due to the improvement of the bank\u2019s financial profile following its merger with Allied Banking Corp. in 2013, it said.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s said PNB\u2019s asset quality and capital buffers \u201chave become comparable with those of its peers in the Philippines\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bank’s high levels of capitalization and loan-loss coverage provide sufficient loss-absorption capacity at its current rating level to withstand moderate asset quality deterioration over the next 12 to 18 months,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

In the case of RCBC, upgrade of its BCA \u201creflects Moody’s assessment that the bank’s standalone profile has become comparable with its peers in the Philippines, as reflected by its solvency and funding metrics\u201d.<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s also projects that the bank\u2019s capital buffers will remain in line with its peers \u201cby periodically accessing the equity markets, as it has done in the past\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cRCBC’s BCA also reflects the bank’s smaller branch network, which limits its ability to garner low-cost deposits compared with that of its larger peers in the country. Nevertheless, liquid assets \u2014 which represented 32 percent of the bank’s tangible assets at end-2016 \u2014 provide support against downside risks,\u201d it said.
\n\u201cThe upgrade of PNB and RCBC’s deposit ratings to Baa2 takes into account the one-notch upgrade of their BCAs to baa3, and a one-notch uplift to reflect Moody’s assumption that the banks will receive support from the Government of the Philippines (Baa2 stable) in times of need,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Improvement of the banks\u2019 BCAs were done after Moody\u2019s cited the stable operating environment for domestic banks because of continued expansion of the domestic economy and the benign leverage and stable debt servicing rates of the private sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhilippine banks exhibit strong funding profiles that are dominated by deposits, and demonstrate little reliance on short-term wholesale funding. These factors are incorporated in Moody’s assessment of the macro profile of the Philippines of Moderate(+),\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0 — Debt watcher Moody\u2019s Investors Service has upgraded its ratings on the Philippine National Bank (PNB) and Rizal Commercial …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":126863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[34980,12333,12334,29941,19017],"class_list":["post-133941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-allied-banking-corp","tag-moodys","tag-moodys-investors-service","tag-philippine-national-bank","tag-rizal-commercial-banking-corp","mauthors-joann-villanueva","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}