Moody’s lifts five Greek banks

Moody's Investors Service said it upgraded the local-currency deposit ratings of National Bank of Egypt SAE, Banque Misr SAE, Banque Du Caire SAE and Commercial International Bank (Egypt) SAE to B3 from Caa1 as well as the local-currency deposit ratings of Bank of Alexandria SAE to B2 from B3.

The standalone ratings of all five banks were also upgraded by one notch.

Moody’s said the actions capture: (a) The improved operating environment in Egypt, which will benefit the banks' business prospects and asset quality; (b) the improved quality of the banks' liquidity buffers; and (c) the government's improved capacity to support these banks, in case of need.

These actions follow the improvement in Egypt's sovereign creditworthiness, as reflected by Moody's decision to upgrade Egypt's bond ratings to B3 from Caa1.

Concurrently, the banks' foreign-currency deposit ratings were upgraded to Caa1 from Caa2 to reflect the increase in the foreign-currency deposit ceiling for Egypt to Caa1.

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