Hungary: Fitch Affirms Support Ratings Of Four Hungarian Banks

Fitch Ratings announced that it affirmed the support ratings of Erste Bank Hungary, Inter-Europa Bank and MKB Bank at '1' and the support rating of Raiffeisen Bank Rt. at '2'. The rating agency does not carry full review on these institutions and thus no long-, short-term and individual ratings are assigned. The affirmation is based on the strategic importance of the Hungarian lenders to their parent banks with the probability for support in the case of the first 3 institutions assessed as "very strong", while in the Raiffeisen Bank's case was termed "high potential for support". Fitch noted that it did not underestimate Raiffeisen Bank parent's propensity to support its Hungarian subsidiary but rather sees the ability of the unrated Austrian bank as potentially weaker.