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Fitch Ratings yesterday said it has revised the National Long-Term Ratings of Sri Lankan financial institutions following the recalibration of the agency's Sri Lankan national rating scale.
The recalibration is to reflect changes in the relative creditworthiness among Sri Lankan issuers following Fitch's downgrade of the sovereign rating to 'B-'/Negative from 'B'/Negative on 24 April 2020, the rating agency said in a statement.
Revision ratings are used to modify ratings for reasons that are not related to credit quality in order to reflect changes in the national rating scale.
National scale ratings are a risk ranking of issuers in a particular market designed to help local investors differentiate risk. Sri Lanka's national scale ratings are denoted by the unique identifier '(lka)'. Fitch adds this identifier to reflect the unique nature of the Sri Lankan national scale. National scales are not comparable with Fitch's international rating scales or with other countries' national rating scales.
The National Ratings of the Sri Lankan banks consider their creditworthiness relative to other issuers in the country.
The recalibration of the Sri Lankan National Rating scale has resulted in the upward revision of the National Long-Term Ratings of the following Sri Lankan financial institutions:
The Banks are as follows: Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC (CB) to 'AA+(lka)' from 'AA(lka),' Hatton National Bank PLC (HNB) to 'AA+(lka)' from 'AA-(lka),' Sampath Bank PLC to 'AA-(lka)' from 'A+(lka),' Seylan Bank PLC to 'A(lka)' from 'A-(lka),' Cargills Bank Ltd. to 'A+(lka)' from 'A-(lka),' and Amana Bank PLC to 'BB+(lka)' from 'BB(lka).'
Non-Bank Financial Institutions are as follows: Serendib Finance Ltd. to 'AA-(lka)' from 'A+(lka),' HNB Finance Ltd. to 'AA-(lka)' from 'A(lka),' Siyapatha Finance PLC to 'A(lka)' from 'A-(lka),' Richard Pieris Finance Ltd. to 'A-(lka)' from 'BBB+(lka),' Fintrex Finance Ltd. to 'B+(lka)' from 'B(lka),' The National Ratings of Bank of Ceylon (BOC) and People's Bank (Sri Lanka) (PB) have been affirmed at 'AA+(lka)' but the Outlook remains Negative.
The Outlook on the National Ratings of CB and HNB are also Negative. The Negative Outlooks are aligned with the Negative Outlooks on both the sovereign rating and Sri Lanka's operating environment mid-point. They reflect our expectation of sovereign support benefitting BOC's and PB's overall credit profiles while CB's and HNB's ratings are constrained by the sovereign's credit profile.
The Outlook on Serendib Finance and HNB Finance reflect the Negative Outlook on the ratings of their respective parents, CB and HNB. The Outlook on Sampath Bank, Seylan Bank, Cargills Bank, Amana Bank, Siyapatha Finance, Richard Pieris Finance and Fintrex Finance is Stable.
Concurrently, Fitch has also taken the following rating actions, driven by changes in the issuers' credit quality and the rating relativities under the recalibrated national scale.
Fitch has taken corresponding rating action on the financial institutions' national scale senior debt ratings, where assigned. The senior debt ratings are at the same level as the National Long-Term Ratings. Fitch has also taken rating action to widen the notching of relevant subordinated debt ratings following the application of Fitch's updated Bank Rating Criteria.
National Ratings assigned to Tier 2 issues are two notches below the National Rating anchor ratings. This is driven by the change in Fitch's baseline notching for loss severity to two notches, from one, for this type of debt and our expectations of poor recovery.
Fitch has not applied additional notching to the notes for non-performance risk, as they have no going-concern loss-absorption features, in line with Fitch's criteria.
The National Ratings are sensitive to a change in the financial institutions' creditworthiness relative to other Sri Lankan issuers and the sovereign rating.
Factors that could, individually or collectively, lead to negative rating action/downgrade:
Pressure on the National Long-Term Ratings of BOC, PB, Commercial Bank of Ceylon and HNB could stem from a deterioration in Sri Lanka's sovereign rating. A sovereign rating downgrade to 'CCC+' or below would make it unlikely that we would factor in expectations of support to any bank in Sri Lanka and it will likely also constrain the standalone credit profiles of domestic banks.
The parents' weaker ability and/or propensity to provide support to their subsidiaries could lead to negative action on the National Long-Term Ratings of Dialog Finance, Serendib Finance, HNB Finance, Cargills Bank, Siyapatha Finance, Richard Pieris Finance, AMW Capital Leasing and Finance and Abans Finance.
Risks to the rest of the Sri Lankan financial institutions' National Long-Term Ratings are most likely to arise from a weakening in their standalone credit profiles. This could be due to a deterioration of the operating environment, which could be triggered by a further weakening of the economy beyond our base-case expectations, leading to additional weakening of key credit metrics, particularly their financial profiles, and/or a weaker operating environment if the potential impact of the coronavirus pandemic becomes more severe or lasts for longer.
Debt ratings would be downgraded if the National Long-Term Ratings were downgraded
Factors that could, individually or collectively, lead to positive rating action/upgrade:
