Fitch Ratings: Fitch Ratings has revised the Outlooks on Al Rajhi Bank (ARB), National Commercial Bank (NCB), Riyad Bank (RB) and SAMBA Financial Group (SAMBA) to Negative from Stable.
The rating actions follow Fitch’s revision of the Outlook on the Saudi Arabian sovereign.
The revision of the banks’ Outlooks to Negative reflects that their Long-term Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) are at the Support Rating Floor (SRF) for Saudi domestic systemically important banks (D-SIB) of ‘A+’. This would be revised down to ‘A’ in the event of a one-notch downgrade of the Saudi sovereign.
The other Saudi banks’ Long-term IDRs are not at the D-SIB SRF of ‘A+’, although we believe there is extremely high likelihood of support for all Saudi banks, and therefore would not be downgraded if the sovereign was downgraded by one notch.