Standard and Poor's has revised the outlook of Unicredit Bulbank, the Bulgarian subsidiary of Italy's Unicredit, to "stable" from "negative" while affirming its long- and short-term ratings.

"The outlook revision and affirmation reflect our view that Unicredit Bulbank's business and financial profile have proven sufficiently resilient to the depressed macroeconomic and difficult operating environment of the past three years and that the bank maintained a better financial performance than peers," S&P analyst Magar Kouyoumdjian said.

The agency projects that the bank's financial profile will remain stable, that its good earnings-generating capacity will absorb further expected weakening in asset quality and that liquidity will be kept at an adequate level.

A negative rating action will be considered if the bank's asset quality and related provisioning requirements deteriorate beyond the agency's projections.

"Weakened ownership or support from Unicredit would also have negative rating implications," the agency added.