On July 29, 2008, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services affirmed its ratings and stable outlook on Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ; AA/Stable/A-1+) and ANZ's subsidiaries (see list). This follows the bank's announcement yesterday that a weak economic outlook had increased its total bad debt provisions for the second half of fiscal 2008 to about A$1.2 billion. Although the increase in provisions represents a significant 44% of pretax profits (after bad debt provisions) and 7% of the bank's adjusted total equity for the half year ended March 2008, the rating affirmation reflects our expectation that there will not be a significant increase in ANZ's credit losses for the remainder of 2008. Furthermore, this increase in provisions comes after
