National Bank of Bahrain − Outlook Revised Following Sovereign Rating Action

Capital Intelligence Ratings (CI Ratings or CI) today announced that it has revised the Outlook for the Long-Term Foreign Currency Rating (LT FCR) and Bank Standalone Rating (BSR) of the National Bank of Bahrain’s (NBB or the Bank) to Negative from Stable, following a similar rating action on the Bahrain sovereign earlier this month (‘B+’/‘B’/Negative). At the same time, CI Ratings has affirmed NBB’s LT FCR and BSR at B+’ and ‘b+’, respectively.

The Bank’s FCR and BSR remain correlated with the sovereign’s creditworthiness. Therefore, any deterioration (or improvement) in Bahrain’s ratings would have a corresponding effect on NBB’s ratings. The BSR is derived from a Core Financial Strength (CFS) rating of ‘bbb-’ (affirmed) and the constraints imposed by Bahrain’s Operating Environment Risk Anchor (OPERA) of ‘b+’. Our Extraordinary Support Level (ESL) assessment of Moderate does not result in any uplift for the Bank’s LT FCR because the BSR…