S&P says RBS ratings unaffected by trading update

27th Jan 2014 17:39

The Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) long-term credit rating would remain unaffected by the lender's announcement of a further 2.9bn pounds in provisions to account for litigation and conduct related matters, ratings agency Standard&Poor's (S&P) said on Monday evening, following RBS' pre-close trading update. Nevertheless, as a result of the aforementioned S&P analysts were estimating the bank's risk-adjusted-capital (RAC) to end 2013 closer to 7%, instead of at between 7.4% and 7.5% as they had previously been expecting. Even so, their base case expectation for the trajectory of the RAC ratio by end-2015 was unchanged, at between 8% and 8.5%."The provisions also support our view that the group's sizable exposure to litigation and conduct risks continues to constrain our assessment of its risk position," S&P explained. AB