Standard & Poor's has reaffirmed its ratings on four Irish banks, following its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment.
Bank of Ireland, Irish Life and Permanent, Ulster Bank and Barclay's Bank Ireland were also removed from S&P's CreditWatch negative. The outlooks are negative, the agency said.
"As a result of today's rating actions, all of our rated Irish banks now have a negative outlook, except for Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Limited," S&P said.
Last week, the agency affirmed its 'BBB+/A-2' sovereign credit ratings on the State, and removed the ratings from CreditWatch negative.
"Our updated view of the Irish sovereign includes in part our view that weaker-than-expected external demand may lower economic growth," S&P said in a statement. "This has not affected our assessment of 'economic resilience' as 'intermediate risk'. Economic resilience is one of the three components of our BICRA economic risk score.
"Our view of 'credit risk in the economy' (another component) as 'very high risk' is also unaffected, even though we consider that the banking system's credit losses through 2013 may be a little higher than we had previously assumed."
The agency said total customer deposit levels had become more stable in recent months, and banks were making progress in meeting their deleveraging requirements.
