Moody’s upgraded the rating of five multi-cédulas on Friday, reflecting a range of recent positive developments affecting Spanish government bonds, cédulas and some of the country’s banks, as well as implementation of new Moody’s anchor points for covered bond ratings, and 43 multi-cédulas series remain on review.

Banco Santander

The upgrades affected one Santander PITCH series, whose rating was lifted from A3 to A2, and four Intermoney multi-cédulas series. IM Cédulas 2 and 9 were upgraded from Baa1 (sf) to A3, IM Cédulas IV from Baa3 (sf) to Baa1 (sf), and IM Cédulas 7 from A3 (sf) to A1 (sf).

Moody’s also confirmed at A3 the ratings of IM Cédulas GBP 3 and IM Cédulas GBP 5. The rating of Intermoney Cédulas IV was left on review, direction uncertain, while the others were removed from review status, which an analyst noted they had been on for over a year-and-a-half.

Forty-three multi-cédulas series remain on review for downgrade or on review, direction uncertain. Moody’s in June 2012 cut 53 multi-cédulas series, placing or keeping them on review for downgrade, and in October maintained the review for downgrade placements for most of them.

“These series exhibit no material change in the expected loss,” said Moody’s. “However, in all of these series the ratings of one or more participants remain on review uncertain or downgrade. Moody’s will conclude the review of these forty three series once the review status of the underlying participants is resolved.”

Moody’s said that the rating actions incorporate five developments, affecting the Spanish sovereign, single-issuer cédulas, and some Spanish banks. These comprise an upgrade of the rating of Spanish government bonds to Baa2 in February and an associated lifting of the Spanish sovereign ceiling from A3 to A1, improvements of the Timely Payment Indicators assigned to cédulas in December, updated Spanish bank ratings including upgrades of Banco Santander and BBVA in early March, updated information on the underlying mortgage cover pools, and implementation of new anchor points for covered bond ratings in response to European bail-in frameworks.