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Moody’s ranks Ireland in bottom quartile of global banking league
10 January 2010 By Kathleen Barrington
Ireland has been ranked 74th in a global league table measuring average bank financial strength ratings by country.
Leading credit rating agency Moody’s gave Irish banks an overall score of Dwhen measuring their average financial strength.
The rating is the second worst rating dished out by the agency, while the fourth quartile ranking gives an indication of how serious the scale of our banking crisis is relative to other western European countries.
Irish banks compare unfavourably even with ones in much less-developed countries - ranking behind Bolivia, Uruguay, Tunisia and Pakistan, for example, when measured by average bank financial strength.
By contrast, the United States still managed to rank 14th while Britain ranked 29th, despite the perceived scale of the banking crisis in both countries. Spain’s banking system is ranked 16th,de spite the fact that the country was hard hit by the bursting of its property bubble.
Ireland found itself in the bottom quartile of the 94 countries surveyed, though it was still marginally ahead of China, Mongolia, Venezuela and Estonia.
The worst performer among the Irish banks was Irish Nationwide, which scored an E-, followed closely by Anglo Irish Bank, which scored an E.AIB, Bank of Ireland, EBS and Irish Life & Permanent all scored Ds. Iceland emerged as the secondworst country in the world when average bank financial strength was measured, while Kyrgyzstan was ranked as the worst. Both countries scored an E.
The strongest banks in the world were in Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia, which were all awarded a B rating. The table was contained in an appendix to a report on the outlook for the global banking system published by Moody’s in December.
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