S&P Global Ratings on March 26 upgraded Instituto de Crédito Oficial's long-term foreign- and local-currency issuer credit and senior unsecured ratings to A- from BBB+, with a positive outlook.

S&P also affirmed the Spanish bank's short-term issuer credit ratings at A-2.

The upgrade of the long-term ratings is based on a recently similar action on Spain. The agency has equalized Instituto de Crédito Oficial's long-term ratings with that of the sovereign, as it believes the lender would almost certainly receive timely and sufficient support from the Spanish government in the event of financial distress.

The positive outlook reflects that on Spain.

This S&P Global Market Intelligence news article may contain information about credit ratings issued by S&P Global Ratings, a separately managed division of S&P Global. Descriptions in this news article were not prepared by S&P Global Ratings. The original S&P Global Ratings documents referred to in this news brief can be found here.