Various Rating Actions Taken On Austrian Banks On Stabilization Of Operating Performance

Austrian banks' pre-COVID-19 path of improvements in efficiency was temporarily interrupted during the pandemic, but banks are now back on track, supported by the higher interest rate environment. Although the economy is facing the headwinds of the secondary effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, we think the private sector will remain sufficiently resilient thanks to governmental support that we view as likely to limit the negative consequences for the banking sector. We now see the trend of industry risk of Austria's banking sector as stable and we continue to see a stable trend of economic risk. As a result, we affirmed our ratings and revised the outlooks on Hypo Vorarlberg Bank AG, Oberoesterreichische Landesbank AG, Oberbank AG, and UniCredit Bank Austria

...February 24, 2023 - Austrian banks' pre-COVID-19 path of improvements in efficiency was temporarily interrupted during the pandemic, but banks are now back on track, supported by the higher interest rate environment. - Although the economy is facing the headwinds of the secondary effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, we think the private sector will remain sufficiently resilient thanks to governmental support that we view as likely to limit the negative consequences for the banking sector. - We now see the trend of industry risk of Austria's banking sector as stable and we continue to see a stable trend of economic risk. - As a result, we affirmed our ratings and revised the outlooks on Hypo Vorarlberg Bank AG, Oberoesterreichische Landesbank AG, Oberbank AG, and UniCredit Bank Austria AG to stable from negative. - We affirmed the ratings and maintained the stable outlook on HYPO NOE Landesbank fur Niederosterreich und Wien AG. - We also revised the outlook on Hypo Tirol Bank AG to positive...

Ratings Action