In addition to the line of business the rating also influences the funding profile: banks with a better rating have easier access to capital market funding at acceptable risk premia than banks with worse ratings. The current market situation in particular is resulting in issuance patterns that differ widely from one bank to another: most of the banks with better ratings still have access to unsecured funding, whereas banks with poorer ratings have been shut out of the market for unsecured bonds for quite some time already. Investors’ perception of whether a bank is financially strong or weak is also.
