Fifth Third Bancorp's asset-quality trends have improved. We are revising our outlook on Fifth Third to stable from negative and affirming the ratings. We expect Fifth Third to record higher-than-normal credit costs through 2010, but believe that these should be manageable. On July 23, 2010, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services revised its outlook on Fifth Third Bancorp to stable from negative. At the same time we affirmed our 'BBB' long-term counterparty credit ratings on Fifth Third, and the 'BBB+' ratings on its banking subsidiaries. The rating action reflects our opinion that Fifth Third's credit quality is improving, with sequential declines in net charge-offs (NCOs), nonperforming assets (NPAs), and total delinquencies since September 2009. Strong pretax, preprovision earnings of about $2.2
