Moody’s credit rating agency downgrades the ratings of 15 largest banks and financial institutions.

Credit ratings of several American financial institutions: Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, as well as several British banks: Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC, have been downgraded.

«All of the banks that have been affected are related to significant risks of potential losses because of the instability on the capital market,»- mentioned in the announcement of the Executive Director on global banking system affairs of Moody’s Greg Bauer.

Ratings of Credit Suisse, UBS, BNP Pariabs, Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and Morgan Stanley were also downgraded, BBC reports.

Moody’s claims that it acknowledges the “clear intention of the government of the world to reduce support of creditors”, but adds that they have yet to determine the conditions under which they are prepared to allow the bankruptcy of banks.

The agency put up a review with a probability of downgrading ratings of other banks. Their ratings will be downgraded, if the governments stop supporting them.

«The biggest surprise- is the downgrade of Credit Suisse by three points at once, which no one expected,»- says Mark Grant, Executive Director of Southwest Securities.

In the last weeks, Moody’s downgraded the ratings of many European banks, including Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Credit ratings of banks from Greece, Spain and Italy – countries hit the most by the debt crisis, were downgraded multiple times by most credit rating agencies.

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