DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale

The stable outlook on DekaBank reflects our view that the German savings banks--which own 100% of DekaBank--remain well placed to withstand the challenging macroeconomic environment over the next two years. The outlook also reflects our assumption that a material shift in DekaBank's strategy and integration with the German savings banks is unlikely. Although it is an unlikely prospect, we could lower our ratings on DekaBank if the German savings banks' competitiveness and profitability were to erode more materially than we anticipate, preventing the group from covering its normalized credit losses, or if payouts to the savings banks' public-sector backers were to increase substantially and weaken the group's aggregate capitalization. We could also take a negative rating action if the savings

...The ratings benefit from DekaBank's ownership by and integration with the German savings banks. This explains the three notches of uplift from the '###' stand-alone credit profile (SACP), reflecting its core status for its ultimate owners, the German savings banks. In the unlikely event that DekaBank requires extraordinary support, we believe that Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV; the German Savings Banks Association), which holds a 100% stake in DekaBank on behalf of the savings banks, would serve as the principal source of such support. We expect DekaBank's strategic alignment and integration with the savings banks to remain high. DekaBank's importance to the German savings banks is underpinned by their reliance on each other in the production and distribution of retail mutual funds. We also note DekaBank's important role in holistically supporting the savings banks' securities investments and advisory production chains in the context of regulatory and customer demands....

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