Moody's upgrades unsecured ratings of 15 Vietnamese banks

Hanoi (VNA) - Moody's
Investors Service has affirmed the long-term local and foreign currency deposit
ratings and senior unsecured ratings of 15 Vietnamese banks at Ba3 positive.
At the same time, Moody's also revised the outlook for the long-term local and
foreign currency deposit and issuer ratings of five banks to positive
from negative, four banks to positive from stable and six banks to stable from
negative.
The rating actions followed Moody's affirmation of Vietnam's Ba3 issuer rating
and the change in the outlook to positive from negative.
The 15 banks are An Binh Bank, ACB, HDBank, Vietcombank, BIDV, Lien Viet Post
Bank, MB, OCB, SeABank, TPBank, Agribank, VIB, VietinBank, VPBank and
Techcombank.
With the exception of An Binh Bank, the Baseline Credit
Assessments (BCAs), adjusted BCAs, Counterparty Risk Assessments (CRA) and
counterparty risk ratings (CRR) assigned to the banks stated above are
unaffected by the rating actions.
It downgraded An Binh Bank's BCA and adjusted BCA to B2 from B1, while the
long-term CRA and CRR have been downgraded to B1 and B1 from Ba3 and Ba3,
respectively.
Vietnam's sovereign credit strength is a key input in Moody's
assessment of the deposit and issuer ratings of Vietnamese banks, because the
country's credit strength affects the government's capacity to provide support
to the banks in times of stress.
Assuming all other factors remain constant, Moody's will
likely upgrade the long-term ratings of the nine Vietnamese banks whose ratings
are on a positive outlook if the Vietnamese government's rating is upgraded./.