In our opinion, UBI Banca's financial profile is exposed to the heightened economic and industry risks we now see for banks operating in Italy. We are therefore lowering our long- and short-term counterparty credit ratings on UBI Banca to 'BBB-/A-3' from 'BBB/A-2' and removing them from CreditWatch, where they were placed with negative implications on July 12. The negative outlook reflects the possibility that we could lower the ratings on UBI Banca if, in our view, the economic and/or operating conditions in which Italian banks operate would deteriorate further and we anticipated a weakening of UBI's capital position, either due to higher economic risk or higher-than-expected pressures on UBI Banca's profitability. On July 24, 2013, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services
