Allfirst Placed On Rating Watch Negative By Fitch Ratings.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2002

Fitch Ratings has placed the ratings of Allfirst Financial Inc., Allfirst Financial Center N.A. and Allfirst Bank on Rating Watch Negative following the announcement of the suspected fraud at Allfirst on Feb. 6, 2002.

Fitch places the following ratings on Rating Watch Negative:

Allfirst Financial Inc.

-- Long-term 'AA-';

-- Short-term 'F1+';

-- Individual 'B'.

Allfirst Financial Center

-- Long-term 'AA-';

-- Short-term 'F1+';

-- Individual 'B'.

Allfirst Bank

-- Long-term 'AA-';

-- Short-term 'F1+';

-- Individual 'B'.

The support rating of '3' is affirmed for all three entities.

Fitch Ratings considers Allfirst's Tier 1 ratio to remain adequate at 7.2% at Dec. 31, 2001, after the $750 million loss, but the scale of the loss and the time taken to discover the suspected fraud have raised issues of management oversight, risk management systems and controls. In addition, this matter and the adverse publicity are likely to impact negatively upon Allfirst's standing and trading prospects.

Allfirst, a US retail and commercial bank based in Baltimore and with approximately $17 billion in assets and a leading market share in its region, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Allied Irish Banks, one of the two major Irish retail and commercial banks. Allied Irish Banks has consolidated assets of over $72 billion and shareholders equity of nearly $5 billion as of June 30, 2001. Following the Allfirst announcement, Fitch Ratings affirmed all its ratings for Allied Irish Banks.