OREANDA-NEWS. August 01, 2012. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said that it had affirmed its 'B' long-term and 'B' short-term counterparty credit ratings on Kazakhstan-based JSC Delta Bank. The outlook is stable, reported the press-centre of KASE.

At the same time, we affirmed the 'kzBB+' Kazakhstan national scale rating.

The affirmation reflects our view that Delta Bank's financial profile remains in line with our previous expectations, despite rapid loan growth. The bank's stand-alone credit profile (SACP) remains unchanged at 'b'.

The bank has aggressively expanded its loan portfolio, and is likely to continue to do so through the remainder of 2012, resulting, in our view, in a lower risk-adjusted capital (RAC) ratio.

The bank aims to expand lending to new sectors and improve its asset diversity to reduce name and sector concentrations in the loan portfolio. We note the short-term nature of the loan book and the fact that the bank has materially lower exposure to the weak real estate and construction sectors than its domestic peers, which, in our view, reduces credit risk. In addition, over the past three years, the bank has demonstrated better asset quality than the Kazakh banking sector average.

Accordingly, we have revised our assessment of Delta Bank's capital and earnings to "adequate" from "strong", and our assessment of its risk position to "adequate" from "moderate".