The major Spanish banks, many of which have wealth management operations, have been downgraded by two rating agencies after Fitch Rating stripped the country of its AA-rating last week.

Part of Fitch’s philosophy is that banks should not have higher ratings than the sovereign country where they are based. Accordingly, the agency has downgraded credit ratings of Santander to AA- from AA, Banco Espanol de Credito to AA- from AA, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria to A+ from AA-, CaixaBank to A from A+, Banco Popular Espanol to BBB+ from A- and Banco de Sabadell to BBB+ from A-. 

Standard & Poor's has gone even further and downgraded 15 Spanish banks. The agency mentioned the country’s slowing economy along with a depressed real estate market as reasons behind the action.  

At the time of writing, the third of the major rating agencies, Moody’s, had yet to take action on the Spanish banks.