Fitch Ratings confirms its short-term and long-term ratings at “BB+” and “B”

Banca popolare dell’Emilia Romagna would like to announce that on 26 March Fitch, the international rating agency, as part of a broad review of the banking system that involved more than 60 European banks, confirmed its Support Rating (SR), and Support Rating Floor (SRF) at “3” and “BB+”, respectively. This did not affect the agency’s assessment of BPER's long-term and short-term ratings which are therefore confirmed at “BB+” and “B”, respectively, with a “negative” outlook.

The agency also pointed out that, at a system level, even though most of the SRs and SRFs have been confirmed, these ratings may suffer a downgrade within one to two years considering the process of implementing the regulatory framework of the EU Directive on the management and resolution of intermediaries’ crises, officially called the “Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive”.

The original text of the press release published by Fitch is available on the rating agency's website (www.fitchratings.com).