SYDNEY, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Global credit rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has slashed the ratings of 23 Australian financial institutions due to the risk of a downturn in property prices in Australia.
In a statement, S&P said on Monday that the Australian economy is out of balance, and forewarned a severe shock to the market if property prices plunged, leaving credit providers with substantial debt.
"To reflect the increased risk, we have lowered our assessment of the stand-alone credit profiles (SACP's) of almost all financial institutions in Australia," the S&P statement said.
However, the major financial institutions in Australia escaped the downgrade, with the Federal Government's Budget that was delivered earlier this month credited with allowing Australia to hold on to its triple-A rating, and therefore ensuring that the top-tier banks were also spared any ratings cut.
Chris Weston, chief market analyst at IG, told Xinhua that these smaller institutions still need to attract funding through the wholesale market, which means debt must be issued.
"If you have a lower credit rating, you are going to have to pay more for it," Weston said.
"The issue today is that the market is obviously putting a connection between the equity and the credit, and whilst their outlook is being assessed, and if they have to borrow, it is at a time where the wholesale market is a lot more expensive and ultimately that will be passed on to consumers."
With the primary reason for the downgrade being the escalating concerns of a property price plummet in the major metropolitan centers of Sydney and Melbourne, the ratings agency also warned of the perils of increased private sector debt, which when combined could lead to a catastrophic collapse.
"With residential home loans securing about two-thirds of banks' lending assets, the impact of such a scenario on financial institutions would be amplified by the Australian economy's external weaknesses, in particular its persistent current account deficits and high level of external debt." the S&P statement said.
A number of recent actions by Australian regulators to mitigate the price pressure concerns have begun to take effect, with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority recently determining that lenders could only issue higher-risk interest-only loans in up to 30 percent of their total mortgages taken out.
"We consider that recent and possible further actions by the Australian authorities should aid in an unwinding of the imbalances in an orderly fashion, as has generally been the case in the past several cycles in Australia," the S&P statement said.
The ratings downgrade affected the share prices of some of the institutions involved, and at 15:06 local time AEST, Bendigo & Adelaide were down 1.41 percent, while the Bank of Queensland fell 0.43 percent.
A single purchase
