DBRS Confirms ICO, Senior Unsecured Debt at A (low), Stable Trend

DBRS Ratings Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the ratings of Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO or the Bank). The Senior Unsecured Debt rating has been confirmed at A (low) with Stable trend. At the same time, the agency has confirmed the Short-Term Debt and Deposit rating at R-1 (low) with Stable trend. This rating action follows DBRS’s confirmation of the Kingdom of Spain at A (low) with Stable trend on October 7, 2016.

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 Euros unless otherwise noted.

The principal applicable methodology is the Global Methodology for Rating Banks and Banking Organisations (July 2016). Other applicable methodologies include the DBRS Criteria: Support Assessments for Banks and Banking Organisations (March 2016), DBRS Criteria: Rating Bank Capital Securities – Subordinated, Hybrid, Preferred & Contingent Capital Securities (February 2016) and DBRS Criteria: Guarantees and Other Forms of Support (February 2016). These can be found can be found at: http://www.dbrs.com/about/methodologies

The sources of information used for this rating include SNL Financials and company disclosures, Bank of Spain and European Central Bank. DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating to be 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 historical default rates published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (“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: Maria Rivas
Rating Committee Chair: Roger Lister
Initial Rating Date: September 16, 2011
Most Recent Rating Update: April 13, 2016

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