We believe the prospect of extraordinary government support for French banks is now uncertain in view of the country's well-advanced and effective resolution regime. We are therefore removing the one notch of uplift for government support that we had previously incorporated into the long-term counterparty credit ratings on RCI Banque. In our opinion, if RCI Banque were to fail, given its moderate size and operating model we are not clear as to whether the banking authorities would permit it to continue its operations as a going-concern. Therefore we have not factored RCI Banque's potential build-up of additional loss-absorbing capacity (ALAC) into our rating. However, in accordance with our criteria, we are affirming our 'BBB' long-term counterparty credit rating on RCI
