NRA Affirms UBRD’s Credit Rating

25 March 2013 (09:20)

March 25, 2013. The National Rating Agency (NRA) affirmed the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s individual credit rating at AA- on the national scale, with Positive rating outlook, which was actually a step up. The bank’s Financial Institutions & Investment Services Director Vladimir Zotov feels that the promotion of the rating outlook has to do with both the positive dynamics of the UBRD’s financial performance and the shareholders’ efforts to improve the bank’s market capitalization, the bank’s press service reports.

‘The UBRD has been successfully implementing a business model aimed at the company’s intensive growth and improvement of financial performance indicators through proactive expansion throughout Russian and increasing the share of retail services. The bank is one of this country’s largest lending institutions in terms of branch network, the number of private customers, the volume of retail lending transactions, the number of card payments, and the number of ATMs. NRA thinks highly of the bank shareholders’ ability to ensure capital adequacy and of the steps the bank has been taking to implement its development strategy. The agency sees enough grounds to promote the UBRD’s rating and to give it a Positive rating outlook. Provided that the bank retains its stable asset quality, liquidity, and capital adequacy figures, and in case its strategy keeps on unfolding successfully, the agency might go through with this Positive outlook,’ says the NRA Chief Analyst Maxim Vasin.

According to the agency’s official press release, the UBRD’s medium-term development strategy for 2013-2015 will allow the bank to become a large lending institution on the national scale. For one, the bank held a re-branding campaign last year, improved on its internal procedures, launched new, promising products, and made its customer service approach better. In February 2013, the deposits volume went up by 1.5bn RUR, the volume of loans offered to private individuals rose by 1.7bn RUR. What is more, the number of Russian federal constituencies where the bank operates increased from 21 to 44 in 2012. The bank’s own funds currently amount to 13.602bn RUR.


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