S&P Global Ratings on July 2 raised the national scale ratings of 10 Nigeria-based lenders and removed the ratings from under criteria observation.

The agency upgraded to ngA/ngA-1 from ngBBB/ngA-2 the national scale ratings of Access Bank PLC, Guaranty Trust Bank PLC, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa PLC and Zenith Bank Plc, while the same ratings of First Bank of Nigeria Ltd., Fidelity Bank PLC and First City Monument Bank Ltd. were raised to ngBBB/ngA-2 from ngBB+/ngB.

The ratings were also raised to ngBBB-/ngA-3 from ngBB/ngB and ngBB+/ngB, respectively, for Diamond Bank PLC and FBN Holdings Plc.

S&P noted that national scale ratings reflect the opinion of the creditworthiness of an entity or debt instrument relative to other issuers in a given country.

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.