National Australia Bank Ltd.

Dominant market position in the Australian and New Zealand retail and commercial banking sectors Conservative risk appetite, backed by a sound risk-management framework Highly likely to receive timely financial support from the Australian government, if needed Material reliance on domestic and offshore wholesale borrowings Our ratings on National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB; AA-/Stable/A-1+) are likely to remain unchanged in the next two years. We believe that the bank's creditworthiness should be supported at its current level by its recent and ongoing exits out of underperforming businesses--a number of which we believe did not strategically fit with the group's core businesses--and resulting capital reliefs, in addition to capital raisings earlier this year. We expect that NAB will maintain its conservative risk

...Outlook Our ratings on National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB; ##-/Stable/A-1+) are likely to remain unchanged in the next two years. We believe that the bank's creditworthiness should be supported at its current level by its recent and ongoing exits out of underperforming businesses--a number of which we believe did not strategically fit with the group's core businesses--and resulting capital reliefs, in addition to capital raisings earlier this year. We expect that NAB will maintain its conservative risk appetite, despite increasing regulatory capital requirements potentially placing pressure on the return on equity. Additionally, we expect that the Australian government's highly supportive stance toward the systemically important private-sector banks in the country will remain unchanged in the next two years. All other things being equal, our issuer credit rating on NAB will remain unchanged, even if the bank's standalone credit profile (SACP) improved or worsened by one notch because such...

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