It follows an upgrade in Vietnam's ratings to 'BB-' from 'B+' on 3 November 2014, which takes into account the improvement in macroeconomic stability and favourable external finances.
The outlook of the banks has been revised to ‘stable’ from ‘positive’, reflecting a similar revision of the sovereign's outlook.
Fitch stated that the Long-Term IDRs of Agribank and Vietinbank are driven by state support. The both banks' Support Ratings (SRs) and SRFs reflect Fitch's expectation of likely extraordinary state support as the two banks are majority-owned by the government and are among the most systemically important banks with quasi-policy functions in the domestic economy.
Agribank and Vietinbank are the largest and second-largest banks by asset size in Vietnam with dominant domestic franchises.
The stable outlook of Agribank and Vietinbank reflect the stable outlook on Vietnam's sovereign rating, according to Fitch.
