OREANDA-NEWS. On 26 February 2009 was announced, that Financial Corporation URALSIB (FC URALSIB or Corporation) announces that Standard & Poor's Ratings Services assigned international credit rating 'B/B' and outlook 'Developing' to URALSIB-YUG BANK, which is a subsidiary company of FC URALSIB.

February 10, 2009, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services assigned its 'B' long-term and 'B' short-term counterparty credit ratings to OJSC 'URALSIB-YUG BANK'. The outlook - 'Developing'. At the same time, the bank was assigned an 'ruA-' Russian national scale rating.

According to Standard & Poor's report, the positive rating factors include the bank's strong links to, and support from, BANK URALSIB, which includes integration of major business and risk-management systems and policies. In addition, URALSIB-YUG BANK benefits from its good market position and brand recognition in Krasnodar Krai, good core profitability, and adequate capitalization.

URALSIB-YUG BANK is a regional bank that ranks among Russia's top 100 banks. It had total assets of 26.5 bln rubles (about USD US 960 mln) as of November 30, 2008. The bank focuses primarily on retail customers and small and midsize businesses and has a good market position within Krasnodar Krai.

'Despite the market turmoil the bank has maintained good profitability, benefiting from high portion of commission income and high interest margins, thanks to low funding costs because of a large proportion of demand deposit accounts', remarked Maria Malyukova, Standard & Poor's analysts.