Rating cut by Moody's for 6 German, 3 Austrian banks amid eurozone crisis | WPN World People News

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded six banks in Germany and three in Austria amid the escalating economic crisis in the Eurozone.

Germany's second- largest bank Commerzbank, based in Frankfurt, had its credit rating cut one level to A3, Moody's said in a statement.

A review of Deutsche Bank, the nation's largest lender, will be concluded later, Moody's said.

The move is part of a review Moody's launched in February for possible downgrades of 114 financial institutions in 16 European countries, the Wall Street Journal said.

The downgrade follows after similar moves in Italy, Spain and the Nordic region. However, Moody's has still to give its conclusion on banks in the U.K. and France.

The other German banks were UniCredit Bank to A3 with negative outlooks while ratings of DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale and DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsb were cut to A1 with stable outlooks, and in the case of Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg and Norddeutsche Landesbank GZ, the ratings were lowered to A3, also with stable outlooks.

Moody's lowered the debt and deposit ratings of Austrian banks - Raiffeisen Bank International, UniCredit Bank Austria and Erste Group Bank AG.

Moody's had on Tuesday downgraded the Greek units of French banks Credit Agricole SA and Socit Gnrale SA.

Agricole's Emporiki Bank of Greece and SocGen's Geniki were cut by two notches each over the possibility of Greece exiting the eurozone.

Source: Europe News.Net