Moody's on Oct. 8 affirmed Bankinter SA's Baa1 long-term bank deposit and Baa2 senior unsecured debt ratings and revised the outlook on the ratings to positive from stable.

The agency also affirmed the Spanish lender's Prime-2 short-term bank deposit rating, "baa3" baseline and adjusted baseline credit assessments, A3(cr)/Prime-2(cr) long- and short-term counterparty risk assessments and A3/Prime-2 long- and short-term local-currency counterparty risk ratings. Bankinter was also assigned long- and short-term foreign-currency counterparty risk ratings of A3/Prime-2.

The actions reflect the bank's sound credit profile and Moody's expectation that this will further strengthen in the next 12 to 18 months, mainly in terms of Bankinter's overall solvency profile, by which the agency expects ongoing asset risk improvements and the lender's capitalization to be brought back to levels before the adoption of IFRS 9 accounting standards and its acquisition of EVO Banco SAU's Spanish banking operations.