DBRS Confirms Santander Totta at BBB (high), Trend Now Stable, After SAN Confirm at “A”, Stable

DBRS, Inc. (DBRS) has today confirmed the ratings of Banco Santander Totta S.A. (Totta or the Bank) following the confirmation of its parent, Banco Santander S.A. (Santander or the Parent). DBRS has confirmed Totta’s Senior Unsecured Long-Term Debt & Deposit rating of BBB (high) and Short-Term Debt & Deposit rating at R-1 (low). At the same time, the trend on all ratings has been revised to Stable from Negative, in line with the rating of the Parent.

These rating actions follow DBRS’s confirmation of Santander at “A”, now with a Stable trend. DBRS maintains its SA-1 support assessment for Totta. The SA1 designation implies strong and predictable support from the Parent. As a supported rating with an SA-1 designation, Totta’s rating will generally move in tandem with Santander’s long-term debt ratings.

The ratings of Totta reflect its important role as a core component of Santander’s international franchise and DBRS’s expectation that Santander has the willingness and ability to support Totta, if needed. The two notch differential between Totta’s long-term debt rating of BBB (high) and Santander’s long-term debt rating of “A” reflects the risks associated with rating a bank subsidiary in foreign country, particularly a lower-rated country. DBRS rates the Republic of Portugal at BBB (low) with a Stable trend. DBRS views the increased risks associated with the lower rating of the Republic of Portugal as appropriately reflected in the two notch ratings differential between the Parent and Totta.

Notes:
All figures are in EUR unless otherwise noted.

The principal applicable methodology is the Global Methodology for Rating Banks and Banking Organisations (June 2014). Other methodologies used include the DBRS Criteria: Support Assessment for Banks and Banking Organisations (January 2014) and DBRS Criteria: Rating Bank Capital Securities – Subordinated, Hybrid, Preferred & Contingent Capital Securities (December 2013). These can be found can be found at: http://www.dbrs.com/about/methodologies

The primary sources of information used for this rating include company documents and SNL Financial. DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating was of satisfactory quality.

This rating is endorsed by DBRS Ratings Limited for use in the European Union.

Lead Analyst: Lisa Kwasnowski
Rating Committee Chair: Alan G. Reid
Initial Rating Date: July 18, 2012
Most Recent Rating Update: August 29, 2013

For additional information on this rating, please refer to the linking document under Related Research.