OREANDA-NEWS. International rating agency Moody's Investors Service affirmed PrivatBank's Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) at “Caa1” level that is one notch above the sovereign rating of government bonds of Ukraine - “Caa2”.

As Moody's reports, downgrade of Ukrainian banks' ratings was not related to the results of their activities and was just a technical procedure dictated by the global valuation methodology of financial institutions. According to this methodology individual credit ratings of most banks in the world must be at or below the level of the sovereign rating of the country in which these banks operate. In individual cases banks can be rated at a level exceeding the country's sovereign rating.

According to Moody's analysts, this exception for PrivatBank was caused by its conservative risk management policy against sovereign investments with the lack of direct and indirect investments in government bonds, a moderate diversification level of its business outside Ukraine and limited reliance on debt markets.

We would remind that on January 31st Moody's announced downgrade of Ukrainian government bonds' rating by one notch - to “Caa2” from “Caa1” with a negative outlook.

Here are PrivatBank's ratings following their reviewing:

• BFSR of E affirmed with the equivalent to a “Caa1” BCA;

• Long-term local-currency deposit rating of “Caa1” confirmed;

• Long-term foreign-currency deposit rating downgraded to “Caa3” from “Caa2”;

• Long-term foreign-currency senior unsecured debt rating of “Caa1” and long-term foreign-currency subordinated debt rating of “Caa2” confirmed;

• Stable outlook maintained on the BFSR; all other long-term global-scale ratings carry a negative outlook.