Countries such as Portugal and Greece with primarily sovereign-related problems could see pressure on the national credit rating weigh heavily on the health of their banking sectors, Moody's, a ratings agency, cautioned on Thursday.

In a report on the impact of contagion to banking sectors, Moody's analysts class Greece, Portugal and to a lesser extent Italy, as countries where fiscal consolidation and market-induced contagion are threatening the health of banks, rather than the other way around