On Nov. 10, 2008, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services affirmed its ratings on National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB; AA/A-1+) and NAB's subsidiaries. At the same time, the outlooks on NAB and its subsidiaries were revised to stable from negative. The outlook revision reflects our view that the risk of a ratings downgrade on NAB in the medium term has been lessened by the bank's ordinary-equity capital raising of more than A$2 billion, which has been fully underwritten. We anticipate that similar to its domestic peers, NAB's earnings are likely to remain under pressure in the near term due to potentially higher credit and asset provisioning, and pressures on asset growth. However, credit losses stemming from mortgage and consumer loans are
