OREANDA-NEWS. October 29, 2010. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services affirmed its 'B' long-term and 'B' short-term counterparty credit ratings on National Bank For Foreign Economic Activity of Uzbekistan (NBU), People's Bank and Uzpromstroybank. The outlooks on all three banks remain stable.

"The affirmations reflect our view that strong ongoing government support has somewhat sheltered the financial performance of NBU, People's Bank, and Uzpromstroybank during the global economic slowdown, and has helped them maintain adequate capitalization and balance-sheet liquidity," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Sergey Voronenko.

According to the report, all three banks have significant domestic franchises and operate to a large degree as agents of government policy in serving particular sectors of the economy.

Standard & Poor's analysts assessed the likelihood of extraordinary state support in the event of financial distress to both NBU and People's as "extremely high" due to "critical" role for the local economy as the largest lender to the strategic industries (NBU) and the largest savings bank (People's Bank).

The experts assessed the likelihood of extraordinary state support in the event of financial distress to Uzpromstroybank as "very high", because of the bank's "very important" role for Uzbekistan's economy as one of the largest lenders to key sectors.

Presently, the assessment of banks' stand-alone credit profiles could benefit from diversification of the loan profile and funding structure, while maintaining acceptable asset quality metrics and adequate capitalization and liquidity, analysts emphasize.