On Jan. 13, 2012, Standard&Poor's lowered its unsolicited long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of Italy to 'BBB+/A-2' from 'A/A-1', assigned a negative outlook, and removed the ratings from CreditWatch negative. We have revised our Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) on Italy to group '4' from group '3', and our economic risk and industry risk scores on Italy to '4' from '3'. We are affirming our 'BBB-/A-3' long- and short-term ratings on Italian bank Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) and its core subsidiary CartaSi Spa, and removing them from Creditwatch negative. The negative outlook on ICBPI and CartaSi reflects the possibility that we could lower their ratings if we saw further weakening