OREANDA-NEWS. National Rating Agency has raised its national scale credit rating on BCS Bank JSC to 'A+'. On June 28, 2011, the bank received NRA's credit rating of 'A-', which was raised to 'A' on May 23, 2013 and affirmed at this level on June 18, 2014.

The key rating strengths driving the upgrade are the bank's achievement of its business expansion and asset buildup targets in 2014, particularly the lending increase and customer base enlargement; rising net interest margin; consistent revenue generation and capitalisation in spite of the growing loan-loss reserves; solid profitability; strong liquidity position; historically low-risk trading portfolio, which represents around 1/3 of assets and equity capital mix.

The retail loans' low coverage by the deposit insurance scheme, high percentage of restructured and overdue loans in BCS Bank's total loan book, which contains mostly loans originated in the period under review (75% of the total) and represents only a small part of the assets; and the high single-name concewntration in bank's funding base are viewed as risks weighing on BCS Bank's credit profile.