At the same time, Moody's also revised the outlook for the long-term local and foreign currency deposit and issuer ratings of five banks to positive from negative, four banks to positive from stable and six banks to stable from negative.
The rating actions followed Moody's affirmation of Vietnam's Ba3 issuer rating and the change in the outlook to positive from negative.
The 15 banks are An Binh Bank, ACB, HDBank, Vietcombank, BIDV, Lien Viet Post Bank, MB, OCB, SeABank, TPBank, Agribank, VIB, VietinBank, VPBank and Techcombank.
With the exception of An Binh Bank, the Baseline Credit Assessments (BCAs), adjusted BCAs, Counterparty Risk Assessments (CRA) and counterparty risk ratings (CRR) assigned to the banks stated above are unaffected by the rating actions.
It downgraded An Binh Bank's BCA and adjusted BCA to B2 from B1, while the long-term CRA and CRR have been downgraded to B1 and B1 from Ba3 and Ba3, respectively.
Vietnam's sovereign credit strength is a key input in Moody's assessment of the deposit and issuer ratings of Vietnamese banks, because the country's credit strength affects the government's capacity to provide support to the banks in times of stress.
Assuming all other factors remain constant, Moody's will likely upgrade the long-term ratings of the nine Vietnamese banks whose ratings are on a positive outlook if the Vietnamese government's rating is upgraded.
