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Fitch Affirms Oriental Bank & Trust FDIC Guaranteed Debt at 'AAA/F1+'

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^{Published in Business and Finance on Wednesday, July 28th 2010 at 13:31 GMT by Market Wire}  

NEW YORK--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Fitch Ratings has affirmed Oriental Bank & Trust's ratings for debt that was issued through the FDIC Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP) at 'AAA/F1+'. Specifically, Oriental Bank & Trust, a subsidiary of Oriental Financial Group (NYSE: OFG), issued $105 million of fixed rate senior unsecured debt under the TLGP. The fixed rate debt issue will mature in February 2012.

Obligations under the TLGP program bear the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government, hence these issues are rated the same as the U.S. sovereign long-term and short-term foreign currency at 'AAA/F1+', respectively, which was last affirmed July 10, 2010. The FDIC guarantees expire at the earlier of the instrument's maturity or by June 30, 2012.

Fitch affirms the following ratings:

Oriental Bank & Trust debt issued under the FDIC TLGP:

--Long-term FDIC guaranteed debt 'AAA';

--Short-term FDIC guaranteed debt 'F1+'.

Applicable criteria available on Fitch's website at [ www.fitchratings.com ]:

--'Sovereign Rating Methodology', dated Oct. 16, 2009.

Additional information is available at [ www.fitchratings.com ].

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