OREANDA-NEWS  On 27 February was announced, that Moody's Investors Service downgraded the local currency deposit ratings of eight banks of the Russian Federation including Russian Agricultural Bank.

RAB’s local currency deposit ratings were downgraded to Baa1/P-2 from A3/P-1. The foreign currency deposit rating of RAB was affirmed at Baa1, stable; the outlooks on other RAB's local and foreign currency debt and deposit ratings remained stable. All ratings remain investment grade. Given its importance for agribusiness sector RAB is considered of systemic importance to the Russian Federation.

Moody's affirmed the bank financial strength ratings (BFSRs) of all 8 banks but changed the outlooks on the BFSRs to negative from stable for all the banks except for Russian Agricultural Bank (RAB), where it was changed to E+, stable from E+, positive.

According to Moody's these rating actions reflect the increasingly negative impact of the global economic crisis on the economy of the Russian Federation and on the intrinsic strength of its financial institutions.