Moody's on June 8 assigned counterparty risk ratings to 14 Austrian lenders.
The rating agency assigned A3/P-2 long- and short-term local- and foreign-currency counterparty risk ratings to Raiffeisen Bank International AG and A3/P-2 long- and short-term local-currency counterparty risk ratings TO other Raiffeisen Banking Group units, Raiffeisenlandesbank NÖ-Wien, Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich AG, Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark AG, Raiffeisen-Landesbank Tirol AG, Raiffeisenlandesbank Vorarlberg Waren- und Revisionsverband reg.GmbH
Moody's assigned Bawag PSK, Hypo Tirol Bank AG and Hypo Vorarlberg Bank AG long- and short-term local-currency counterparty risk ratings of A1/P-1, Baa1/P-2 and A2/P-1, respectively.
Erste Group Bank AG and U.S.-based Erste Bank New York were assigned A1/P-1 long- and short-term local- and foreign-currency counterparty risk ratings.
Moody's also assigned UniCredit SpA unit UniCredit Bank Austria AG and card complete Service Bank AG A3/P-2 long- and short-term local-currency counterparty risk ratings. Volksbank Wien AG
The rating agency's counterparty risk ratings assess the ability of companies to honor the uncollateralized portion of nondebt counterparty financial liabilities, as well as the expected financial losses in case such liabilities are not honored.
Apart from RBI, the counterparty risk ratings assigned to the Austrian banks are higher than their senior unsecured debt ratings, reflecting the agency's view that secured counterparties to lenders typically benefit from greater protections under insolvency laws and bank resolution regimes than senior unsecured creditors, and that this benefit will potentially extend to the unsecured portion of such secured transactions in most bank resolution regimes.
