Debt crisis: as it happened December 15, 2011

12-16-2011 • telegraph.co.uk

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23.48 That's it from the live blog today. We'll be back tomorrow. In the mean time, log on to our financial crisis page for more news and analysis.

Goodnight.

22.00 Fitch added:

Over time market conditions are likely to ease, but Fitch expects market volatility to remain above historical averages and economic growth in developed markets to remain subdued for a prolonged period. This makes many business lines in securities operations more difficult, due to lower activity and higher funding costs.

While regulation enhances creditworthiness of banks generally by forcing them to hold higher capital and liquidity and curbing risk-taking in some areas, it also restricts earnings potential and increases costs, which encourages increasing the scale required to remain efficient and will likely reduce the number of market participants.

21.45 Barclays is among six banks which have just had their long-term Issuer Default Rating - or risk rating - downgraded by Fitch.

In a statement, the ratings agency said the downgrades on Barclays (downgraded to A from AA-) , Bank of America (A from A+), BNP Paribas (A+ from AA-), Credit Suisse (A from AA-), Deutsche Bank (A from AA-), and Goldman Sachs (A from A+)

reflected challenges faced by the sector as a whole [...] These challenges result from both economic developments as well as a myriad of regulatory changes.