OREANDA-NEWS. National Rating Agency has assigned its 'A' credit rating to Uniastrum Commercial Bank LLC (Uniastrum). It is the first time that Uniastrum is rated by NRA.

The rating is supported by the bank's strong liquidity position,with the quick and current ratios (N2 and N3 respectively) comfortably above the regulatory minima (N2=92.09%; N3=214.75% as of Feb. 1, 2016), and solid NRA ratios(quick assets/ on-call liabilities = 95.2% as of Feb. 1, 2016, and liquid assets/ liabilities = 29% as of the latest reporting date). NRA also notes Uniastrum's high-quality trading portfolio, made ups of securities included in the Central Bank of Russia's Lombard List, low exposure to top-10 borrowers (around 3% of total payables to customers), high collateral/ total loans, net of pledged securities, guarantees and sureties, (111.5%), and the new owner's commitment to the bank.

The rating is constrained by the bank's low-quality loan book that partly consists of non-performing loans (NRA notes the bank's plan to reduce the latter), its retail-deposit-taking strategy (retail deposits increased by 88.4%, or by RUB 27.6 bn, over the four months beginning November 2015). The ratio of confidence-sensitive retail funding in the bank's total funding base (93%) is regarded as too high, although Uniastrum plans to reduce it step-by-step by taking more deposits from corporate entities and SMEs. Other rating weaknesses include the quality of Uniastrum's equity structure and the currently modest level of its lending-related revenues.

NRA’s analytical products, including ratings and the contents of this press release, are statements of NRA’s independent opinion as of the date they are expressed and not statements of fact or recommendations to make any investment decisions or conduct any stock market transactions. NRA is not responsible for any results obtained from the use of opinions and/or information contained in this press release.

While NRA has obtained information from sources it believes to be reliable, NRA does not guarantee that this information is perfectly correct, complete and accurate, as it does not perform an audit or undertake any duty of due diligence or independent verification of any information it receives.