DBRS Confirms ICO’s Senior Unsecured Debt at A (low); Trend now Positive

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the ratings of the Senior Unsecured Debt issued by Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO or the Bank) at A (low) and the Short-term Debt and Deposit rating at R-1 (low). Concurrently, DBRS has changed the trend on the Senior Unsecured Debt to Positive from Stable. The trend on the Short-Term Debt and Deposit remains Stable. This rating action follows DBRS’s confirmation of the Kingdom of Spain at A (low), with the trend changed to Positive from Stable on October 9, 2015.

ICO is a credit institution by law and is considered to be a State Finance Agency of Spain. ICO benefits from an explicit, irrevocable, unconditional and direct guarantee from the Kingdom of Spain that is stated in its by-laws under the Royal Decree Act 706/1999. Hence, ICO’s Senior Unsecured Debt is backed by the explicit, unconditional, irrevocable and direct guarantee from the Kingdom of Spain (or the State). Therefore, the ratings and trend are equalised with the Long-Term and Short-Term Foreign and Local Currency ratings of the Kingdom of Spain.

Notes:
All figures are in EUR unless otherwise noted.

The principal applicable methodology is the Global Methodology for Rating Banks and Banking Organisations (June 2015). Other applicable methodologies include the DBRS Criteria: Support Assessments for Banks and Banking Organisations (March 2015) and DBRS Criteria: Rating Bank Capital Securities – Subordinated, Hybrid, Preferred & Contingent Capital Securities (February 2015).These can be found can be found at: http://www.dbrs.com/about/methodologies

The sources of information used for this rating include company reports, the European Central Bank, European Banking Authority, Bank of Spain and SNL Financial. DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating was of satisfactory quality.

DBRS does not audit the information it receives in connection with the rating process, and it does not and cannot independently verify that information in every instance.

Generally, the conditions that lead to the assignment of a Negative or Positive Trend are resolved within a twelve month period. DBRS’s outlooks and ratings are under regular surveillance.

For further information on DBRS historic default rates published by the European Securities and Markets Administration (“ESMA”) in a central repository, see:
http://cerep.esma.europa.eu/cerep-web/statistics/defaults.xhtml.

Ratings assigned by DBRS Ratings Limited are subject to EU regulations only.

Lead Analyst: María Rivas
Rating Committee Chair: Roger Lister
Initial Rating Date: February 25, 2013
Most Recent Rating Update: April 14, 2015

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Information regarding DBRS ratings, including definitions, policies and methodologies are available on www.dbrs.com.