Moody’s upgraded by up to four notches from B3 covered bonds from three Greek banks yesterday (Tuesday), with recent benchmarks now at Ba2 or Ba3, after having upgraded the respective issuers and their counterparty ratings on the back of an upgrade of Greece.

The Greek sovereign was upgraded from Caa2 to B3 on Wednesday of last week (21 February) and the country ceiling raised to Ba2.

The six covered bonds programmes – two each from Alpha Bank, Eurobank Ergasias and National Bank of Greece – were all upgraded from B3.

National Bank of Greece’s programmes were upgraded to Ba2 and Alpha Bank’s to Ba3. Covered bonds issued off Eurobank Ergasias’s programme 1 – which its debut benchmark in October was issued off – were upgraded to Ba2 and those off its programme 2 to B1.

The NBG and Eurobank programmes that were upgraded to Ba2 are now capped by the country ceiling, while the others are constrained by their Timely Payment Indicators (TPIs) of “very improbable” under Moody’s methodology.

Moody’s action comes after Fitch on Friday upgraded covered bonds issued by Alpha, NBG and Piraeus Bank.