...Ratings Aligned with Parent's: Credit du Nord's (CN) Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) and senior debt ratings are aligned with the parent SociTtT GTnTrale's (SG, A/Stable/a), reflecting CN's key role to SG's domestic retail franchise and strong integration. We see an extremely high probability that CN would receive support from SG, if required. Key to SG's Strategy: CN is integral to SG's domestic retail banking strategy and is strongly integrated within SG. CN is a significant contributor to SG's French retail banking operations and generated about 30% of this division's pre-tax profit in 2016. CN's limited size compared with SG's (about 5% of SG's total assets at end-2016) should make any required support from SG manageable. Asset Quality Constrains the VR: Weak asset quality constrains CN's Viability Rating (VR). The VR also reflects CN's adequate franchise in France (2% market shares in both deposits and lending), a stable business model, which is weighted towards traditional commercial...
