OREANDA-NEWS. On 13 July 2009 Credit-Rating, a nationally recognized credit rating agency in Ukraine announced that it revised a number of bank deposit ratings assigned earlier.

A slight increase in the number of high and highest BDRs indicates certain stabilization in the banking system, which has occurred over the 2 past months, though it is too early to talk about improvements.

The majority of the banks (33) today demonstrate moderate strength of bank deposits rated `3`. The rating `5` (the highest) is carried by 8 banking institutions, with the number of banks bearing rating `4` (high strength) increased to 11 from 10. The reliability of deposits at 2 banks remains below average rated `2` (low strength). In comparison with April, the number of banks carrying the highest and high ratings has not changed significantly.

The number of banks with median strength has declined by 6 due to the fact that 1 bank has been upgraded and BDRs of 5 banks have been suspended. A sharp decline in the number of banks with below average strength was prompted by withdrawal of BDRs assigned to 22 banks, which discontinued submitting their data to Credit-Rating, with 11 of these banks introduced temporary administrations.

Overall, the dynamics of BDRs (a constant number of banks carrying high ratings) indicates certain stabilization in the banking system coupled with inflow of deposits. At that, it is too early to talk about an upheaval, since the macroeconomic indicators in the country and in a number of industries continue to decline, which leads to significant deterioration of banks` asset quality and considerable losses.

The Credit-Rating`s methodology envisages a constant monitoring of the financial state of institutions and regular revision of their ratings. The information on current BDRs, no which Credit-Rating obtained bank`s approval for publication may be found in the agency`s web-site. As of today, the information on their BDRs was approved for publishing by 17 banking institutions. The rest of the ratings will be published once the approval from a bank has been received.

The bank deposit ratings are dynamic and may be revised following events and/or changes in indicators of bank`s performance, which may affect the bank`s capacity to make timely and full payments on its deposits. Further change of the rating is contingent upon bank`s capacity to maintain its indicators on a sufficient level under adverse economic environment in the country. The rating is also considerably affected by changes in operating environment, namely regulator`s policy affecting the banking sector, and willingness and ability of the state or owners to furnish necessary backing to the institution.