LONDON (Standard&Poor's) Feb. 22, 2010--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it raised its issue ratings on Barclays Bank PLC's (Barclays; AA-/Negative/A-1+) hybrid capital securities to 'A-' from 'BBB+' and raised those on DnB NOR Bank ASA (DnB NOR; A+/Stable/A-1) to 'BBB+' from 'BBB'. We classify perpetual, deferrable junior subordinated debt and preference shares as hybrid capital securities. In March 2009, for European banking groups, we widened the gap between the long-term counterparty credit rating and the hybrid security rating to three notches in most cases, and to four or more notches in certain instances related to various factors including the elimination of ordinary dividends by the hybrid issuer. Barclays and DnB NOR were two of the
