In our opinion, Italian banks are operating in an environment with higher economic risks, leaving them more exposed to a deeper and longer recession in Italy than we had previously anticipated. In addition, we believe that Italian banks face increased industry risks as a result of a sustained higher cost of funding than most other banking markets in the eurozone, which could limit banks' access to affordable capital market financing. We have therefore lowered our ratings on 18 Italian banks and removed the ratings on 17 of those banks from CreditWatch with negative implications. We have affirmed the ratings on UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo. We also affirmed the ratings on Istituto per il Credito Sportivo, Banca Fideuram, Mediobanca, Banca Popolare
