LONDON (S&P Global Ratings) Nov. 17, 2020--Following a recent review, S&P Global Ratings says that it is keeping the Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) of the U.K.'s banking sector in group '3'. In addition, the economic risk score remains '4' with a negative trend, while the industry risk score remains '3' with a stable trend. No U.K. bank ratings were affected by this review. Even before the recently commenced second COVID-19-induced national lockdown we had assumed that U.K. GDP would decline by close to 10% in 2020 and that the unemployment rate would peak at over 7% during 2021. Clearly, near-term economic indicators are set to be worse than we previously assumed, albeit not significantly. Nevertheless, we see clear
