DBRS: Canadian Banks’ Trends Now Stable on Bail-In Approval

DBRS has announced that it has:

changed the trend to Stable from Negative on the Long-Term Issuer Ratings, Senior Debt Ratings and Deposits ratings of the Bank of Montreal, The Bank of Nova Scotia, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and the National Bank of Canada. These actions result from the publication by the Minister of Finance of the final rules related to the Bank Recapitalization Regime (the Bail-in Regime). DBRS notes that the Stable trends on the long-term ratings of The Toronto-Dominion Bank and Royal Bank of Canada were unaffected. For these domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) to which the Bail-in Regime is applicable, DBRS has created a new obligation named Bail-inable Senior Debt. This new obligation rating reflects the senior debt that these banks will begin issuing once the Bail-in Regime goes into effect on September 23, 2018. Lastly, DBRS has downgraded the legacy Subordinated Debt ratings of these D-SIBs by one notch.

The revision of the trend to Stable from Negative for the affected long-term ratings reflects DBRS’s view that a downgrade of existing senior debt for the D-SIBs is now unlikely. It is anticipated that systemic support would still be sufficient to add a notch for such support until the D-SIBs issue adequate amounts of Bail-inable Senior Debt to meet their total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) requirements. Once an adequate level of bail-inable debt has been issued, the likelihood of future systemic support would be much lower. Accordingly, the notch of support would then be withdrawn. However, the new Bail-inable Senior Debt creates an additional buffer that better protects all senior obligations that cannot be bailed in under the regulation. Therefore, DBRS does not expect to downgrade any long-term ratings of existing senior obligations of the D-SIBs.

When issued, DBRS will rate the new Bail-inable Senior Debt at the level of each bank’s Intrinsic Assessment (IA), reflecting the risk of a D-SIB being put into resolution.

The downgrades of the legacy Subordinated Debt ratings reflect the structural subordination to the Bail-inable Senior Debt.

This has been telegraphed for a long, long time:

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