Fitch Ratings says that the unsettled operating environment and the uncertain global economic outlook may continue to impact bank credit risk profiles.

During the third quarter there was an acceleration of the negative shift in ratings with almost four times as many negative rating actions as positive, it reports. At the same time, there were almost twice as many negative outlooks as positive outlooks assigned to banks’ long-term ratings at the end of September.

That said, the rating agency also notes that measures taken by governments around the world to support their respective banking sectors should keep support rating floors at a relatively high level. This should limit downgrades in banks’ long-term issuer default ratings in those regions. While those measures should alleviate liquidity problems, the main concern is the extent to which the dislocation in the global financial market will feed through to the real economies of developed countries, Fitch notes.

“A number of economies are entering recession,” says Alison Le Bras, managing director in Fitch’s Financial Institutions Group. “In this context banks face the prospect of increased credit costs on top of higher funding costs as well as the need, in some cases, to replenish capital levels.”