MELBOURNE (Standard&Poor's) July 1, 2009--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it had affirmed its 'AA/A-1+' ratings on Australia's four major banks: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank Ltd., and Westpac Banking Corp. The outlooks on the long-term ratings of all the four banks remain stable. At the same time, the ratings on the core subsidiaries of these banks were affirmed with stable outlooks. "The rating affirmation reflects our expectation that the global economic downturn is likely to have a fairly benign impact on the Australian economy, resulting in only a mild and short recession in the country," Standard&Poor's credit analyst Sharad Jain said. "Furthermore, we believe
