Another downgrade for SNS

Philip Bayley
The Dutch mortgage lender, SNS Bank NV, visited the Australian market each year between 2004 and 2006 and still has A$700 million of December 2010 and November 2011 bonds outstanding. Moody's downgraded SNS last week, lowering its bank financial strength rating to 'C-' from 'C' and its long- and short-term credit ratings to 'A3/P-2' from 'A2/P-1'. The outlook has been left as negative.

This action concludes a review for possible downgrade, during which Moody's carried out a scenario analysis of how expected losses would affect SNS Bank's asset quality, earnings and capitalisation. The analysis showed that the bank's BFSR would potentially be weakened by further deterioration in its financial performance as a result of the economic downturn.

Moody's rating action on SNS Bank was triggered by the significant worsening of the bank's asset quality and notably by the high level of impairments, stemming mainly from SNS Property Finance as a result of the downturn of the real estate markets.