PrefBlog

Standard & Poor’s has announced:

• •We continue to evaluate the likelihood, degree, and timeframe with respect to which the default risk of systemically important Canadian banks may change as a result of the government’s progress toward introducing a bank bail-in framework.
• •We now expect that the timeframe could be substantially longer than we had previously assumed. We see the absence of the topic from the new government’s Dec. 4 Speech from the Throne as recent, incremental evidence in this regard.
• •We now do not expect to consider the removal of rating uplift for our expectation of the likelihood of extraordinary government support from the issuer credit ratings (ICRs) on systemically important Canadian banks until a point beyond our standard two-year outlook horizon for investment-grade ratings, if at all.
• •When and if we remove such uplift, the potential ratings impact will also consider uplift for additional loss-absorbing capacity, as well as any changes to our stand-alone credit profiles on these banks.
• •As a result, we are revising our outlooks on all systemically important Canadian banks to stable from negative.

RATING ACTION
On Dec. 11, 2015, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services revised its outlooks on the Canadian banks that it views as having either “high” (Bank of Montreal, The Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, The Toronto-Dominion Bank), or “moderate” (Caisse centrale Desjardins and National Bank of Canada) systemic importance, to stable from negative (see ratings list). The issuer credit ratings (ICRs) on the banks are unchanged.

RATIONALE
We believe that the potential negative ratings impact of a declining likelihood of extraordinary government support, at least within our standard two-year outlook horizon, has subsided. This reflects our updated view that there could be an extended implementation timetable–2018 or later–for the proposed Canadian bail-in framework. Importantly, at the point we would consider removing any uplift from the likelihood of extraordinary government support from our ratings, we would also consider the potential ratings impact of any uplift for additional loss-absorbing capacity (ALAC), as well as any
changes to our stand-alone credit profiles (SACPs) on these banks. In our view, the extended timetable introduces some potential that either the presence of ALAC or fundamental changes in credit quality at individual banks might come into play more than under the previously contemplated timetable.

We had revised our outlooks on systemically important Canadian banks to negative chiefly in reaction to the former government’s “Taxpayer Protection and Bank Recapitalization Regime” consultation paper of Aug. 1, 2014, as we then expected a bail-in regime could be fully implemented by 2016 (see “Outlook On Six Big Canadian Banks Revised To Negative Following Review Of Bail-In Policy Proposal,” published Aug. 8, 2014, on RatingsDirect). A number of subsequent developments have caused us to re-evaluate this expectation:

• •In its April 2015 budget proposal, the former government affirmed its intention to introduce a bank bail-in regime in Canada, but it provided only very limited additional information relative to what it had outlined in its 2014 consultation paper; nor did the government make substantial subsequent public statement on the topic; nor did it specify timing for the announcement of its fully-developed (post-consultation) legislative proposal.
• •The Oct. 19 federal election changed the party in government to Liberal (center-left), from Conservative (center-right). The former government’s proposed bail-in regime did not feature prominently in election debates.
• •The new government’s Dec. 4 Speech from the Throne made no mention of the proposed bail-in framework, nor were any of the legislative priorities enumerated therein closely related, in our opinion. We believe this indicates the introduction of a bail-in framework is not among the immediate priorities of the new government.

Moreover, with Canada experiencing no government bank bail-outs, nor large bank failures, for decades, we believe the political incentive to rapidly end “too-big-to-fail” is less in Canada than in the U.S. and several EU countries, which are jurisdictions under which we have already removed uplift for our expectation of the likelihood of extraordinary government support from our ratings (see “U.S. Global Systemically Important Bank Holding Companies Downgraded Based On Uncertain Likelihood Of Government Support,” and “Most European Bank Ratings Affirmed Following Government Support And ALAC Review,” both published Dec. 2, on RatingsDirect). We will take this factor into consideration as we continue to evaluate our view on the likelihood of extraordinary government support in Canada relative to not only the U.S. and Europe, but also other jurisdictions where we maintain a government support assessment of “supportive” or “highly supportive” under our criteria (such as for many countries in Latin America and Asia-Pacific; see “Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment Update: November 2015,” published Nov. 27).

We now believe the procedural hurdles to passing legislation and related regulations (the latter after passage of the former) for a bail-in regime will alone require a minimum of one-to-two years, after the new government decides on a final legislative framework to propose to Parliament. Considering all of this, we now expect the eventual date for initial implementation of the bail-in regime (that is, banks issuing bail-inable debt) could be in 2018 or later.

In addition, and in contrast to bail-in frameworks outlined by U.S. authorities or in European countries like Germany, Canadian officials’ statements have made clear that only debt issued or renegotiated after an initial implementation date would be subject to conversion. It will take some time for the banks to issue or renegotiate bail-inable debt. We believe this means it could take several years after the initial implementation date before we would consider a Canadian bail-in regime effective, so as to provide a viable alternative to the direct provision of extraordinary government support.

As well, and again in contrast to the U.S. and EU jurisdictions, Canadian governments have made no attempt to limit their ability to provide direct extraordinary support to their banks, if needed. We expect bailing in senior creditors to be the first Canadian policy response in the face of a crisis. At the same time, we believe Canadian governments would be likely to consider all policy options, in such a circumstance. It is therefore not certain that the introduction of a bail-in regime would of itself result in our revising our government support assessment on Canada to “uncertain” from the current “supportive” and the removal of rating uplift for our view on the likelihood of extraordinary government support from our ICRs on systemically important Canadian banks. Rather, our decision would depend, among other factors, on the details of the eventual bail-in regime, including the extent to which bail-inable and unbail-inable senior debt is distinguishable.

Partly to honor G-20 and other international commitments, the Canadian government will, we expect, present a finalized legislative proposal for the bail-in framework in 2016 or 2017. However, we expect an implementation date that could be in 2018 or later, and we think it could take at least one and possibly several years more for substantial bail-in eligible debt to be in place. With a runway that long, the potential ratings impact from removing uplift for the likelihood of extraordinary government support is beyond our standard two-year outlook horizon for investment-grade ratings, and could by then be more meaningfully affected by either ALAC uplift (from the bail-inable debt, assuming our related criteria are met) or SACP changes, than under the previously contemplated timetable.

When the government presents the detailed provisions of the framework, along with a more specific timeframe, we will review the applicable notching for various bank liabilities, taking into account the framework’s implications on different instruments. We expect that issue ratings on new bail-inable instruments will be at a level that is notched in reference to banks’ SACPs, while ratings on non-bailinable senior debt may continue to incorporate rating uplift above the banks’ SACPs, based on our expectation of the likelihood of extraordinary government support, or ALAC.

OUTLOOK
Our outlooks on the systemically important Canadian banks are stable, based on our reassessment of the likelihood, degree, and timeframe with respect to which the default risk of systemically important Canadian banks may change as a result of the government’s progress toward introducing a bank bail-in framework. We believe that the likelihood of extraordinary government support will continue to be a factor in systemically important Canadian bank ratings throughout the current outlook period.

Moreover, we believe these banks will continue to exhibit broad revenue diversification, conservative underwriting standards, and strong overall asset quality. Our current view is that the impact of low oil prices on their profitability and credit quality will be contained, given the modest direct exposure of the banks to the oil and gas sector, and the limited knock-on impact so far on consumer credit in regional economies affected by low oil prices.

On the other hand, we continue to monitor a number of key downside risks to our ratings on these banks, including low margins, high Canadian consumer leverage, residential real estate prices we believe are at least somewhat inflated in some parts of Canada, a Canadian macroeconomic outlook that is very tentative, and the higher-risk nature of certain recent foreign acquisitions.

The August 2014 imposition of Outlook-Negative was reported on PrefBlog, as was the federal consultation on the recapitalization regime. As far as I can tell, the comments received on the consultation paper have not been published; I believe this is because Canadians are too stupid to understand smart stuff like legislation and parliament and all that – if given a pile of comments to work through, we’d probably try to eat them.

Issues affected are:

BMO.PR.K, BMO.PR.L, BMO.PR.M, BMO.PR.Q, BMO.PR.R, BMO.PR.S, BMO.PR.T, BMO.PR.W, BMO.PR.Y and BMO.PR.Z

BNS.PR.A, BNS.PR.B, BNS.PR.C, BNS.PR.D, BNS.PR.L, BNS.PR.M, BNS.PR.N, BNS.PR.O, BNS.PR.P, BNS.PR.Q, BNS.PR.R, BNS.PR.Y and BNS.PR.Z

CM.PR.O, CM.PR.P and CM.PR.Q

NA.PR.Q, NA.PR.S and NA.PR.W

RY.PR.A, RY.PR.B, RY.PR.C, RY.PR.D, RY.PR.E, RY.PR.F, RY.PR.G, RY.PR.H, RY.PR.I, RY.PR.J, RY.PR.K, RY.PR.L, RY.PR.M, RY.PR.N, RY.PR.O, RY.PR.P RY.PR.W and RY.PR.Z

TD.PF.A, TD.PF.B, TD.PF.C, TD.PF.D, TD.PF.E, TD.PF.F, TD.PR.S, TD.PR.T, TD.PR.Y and TD.PR.Z

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 12th, 2015 at 1:53 am and is filed under Contingent Capital, Issue Comments, Regulation, Regulatory Capital. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.