Santander’s bid for Webster demonstrates its confidence in the US banking sector and its long-term business prospects, despite the current scenario of high political risk, deterioration in public finances and weakening of governance standards.

European utilities are navigating an intensive, multi-year power-grid investment cycle. While capex has risen gradually in recent years, the vast scale of planned upgrades for the decade ahead remains the main challenge to the sector’s credit quality.

The targets of the strategic plan and the bank’s 2025 performance both align with expectations already embedded in our ‘A’/Stable/’‘S1’ ratings.

The root causes of growing credit stress remain firmly in place despite investors’ relatively benign response to structural shifts, leaving a mixed but increasingly negative outlook for corporate credit through the rest of 2026, says Scope Ratings.

Wednesday, 11 February 2026

Thursday 29 January 2026 - 15:00 (CET)

JD.com’s arrival in European consumer goods retail sets an important precedent for the sector and represents a further shift in commercial spheres of influence in the region.

Resilient profitability, solid asset quality and capital buffers make for a balanced base case for European banks. Alongside stable expected collateral performance, most covered bond programmes can withstand issuer downgrades of up to three notches.

Geopolitical tensions, continued political uncertainty in France, and poor operating efficiency may cloud the outlook for French banks in 2026 in an otherwise supportive operating environment where stable interest rates favour improved profit margins.

The EU NPL ratio continues to be low and stable, but corporate NPLs are elevated in some core countries. At a time of rising geopolitical risk, trade tensions and an uncertain economic outlook, we expect a modest deterioration in asset quality.