OREANDA-NEWS. Capital Intelligence (CI), the international credit rating agency, announced today that it has affirmed Ahlibank’s Long- and Short-Term Foreign Currency Ratings at ‘A’ and ‘A2’, respectively. The agency also maintained the Support Level of ‘1’ in view of the extremely high likelihood of support from the Bank’s strong government shareholders.

CI affirmed Ahlibank’s Financial Strength Rating (FSR) at ‘A-‘ “supported by the very sound and improved loan asset quality, ongoing strong profitability at both the operating and net levels, and the solid capital adequacy”.

The Outlook for all the ratings is ‘Stable’. CI also recognized Ahlibank’s greater diversification of funding sources and satisfactory ratio of net loans to stable funds, both benefiting from the successful USD 200 Million syndicated term debt raising during the year.

CI cited that as a result of settlements and write-offs, the quality of the loan portfolio has improved considerably as demonstrated by the decline in non-performing loans (NPLs).