LONDON (Standard&Poor's) On Jan. 19, 2009--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it affirmed its 'A+/A-1' long- and short-term counterparty credit ratings on The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS) and related entities. RBS is the main operating entity of U.K. bank holding company The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBSG). The outlooks on all entities remain stable. At the same time, Standard&Poor's lowered its ratings on RBSG's hybrid capital issues to 'BB' from 'BBB', reflecting our view that dividend payment deferral risk has increased. Additionally, the 'BB' ratings were placed on CreditWatch with negative implications. We consider RBSG to be of high systemic importance to the U.K. banking system and we now explicitly
