Moody’s upgraded five Austrian covered bond programmes from an aggregate three issuers by one notch to triple-A on Friday after having assigned Counterparty Risk (CR) assessments that resulted in higher covered bond anchor points.

The five programmes upgraded one notch to Aaa are: Bawag PSK mortgage covered bonds and public sector covered bonds, Erste Group Bank mortgage covered bonds and public sector covered bonds, and UniCredit Bank Austria mortgage covered bonds. The mortgage covered bonds of Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederoesterreich-Wien were affirmed at Aaa and removed from review for downgrade.

The CR assessment for Bawag PSK is A3 and those of the other issuers are Baa1, while the covered bond anchor points for all six programmes is the CR assessment plus one notch.

Bawag PSK’s senior unsecured rating was upgraded one notch from Baa2 to Baa1 last Wednesday. The senior unsecured ratings of Erste Group Bank and UniCredit Bank Austria were affirmed at Baa2.

The senior unsecured rating of Kommunalkredit Austria was meanwhile downgraded two notches, from Ba1 to Ba3. Its ratings are under review, direction uncertain, due to uncertainty arising from a planned split of the institution.