OREANDA-NEWS. March 16, 2010. The international rating agency "Fitch Ratings" has improved the AB Bank SNORAS Long-term Issuer Default Rating Outlook from Negative to Stable, reported the press-centre of Bank SNORAS.

The ratings improvement follows the Fitch’s revision of Lithuania’s Sovereign rating and also, as it is stated in Fitch Ratings release, by the fact that Bank SNORAS share of retail deposits is about 14 per cent and of assets is about 7 per cent and it is an important participant in the retail banking of the Lithuanian market.

“I think that improvement of the rating outlook was also influenced by the bank’s activity results and the actions performed last year. The main goal of the bank in 2009 was to consolidate the capital base and to optimize the activity expenditures. These goals were achieved. It is also illustrated by the following facts: during 2009 Bank SNORAS increased the capital base by more than LTL 146 million, earned LTL 8.7 million profit, while the bank’s assets within 2009 grew by 11 per cent up to LTL 6.342 billion and were by LTL 647.8 million larger than at the beginning of 2009,” states Raimondas Baranauskas, the President of AB Bank SNORAS.

The current ratings granted to AB Bank SNORAS by "Fitch Ratings" are as follows:

Long-term Issuer Default rating: „B+“

The rating of the issued Eurobonds: „B+“

Ratings outlook: Stable.