Russian rating agency RAEX (Expert RA) affirmed its creditworthiness rating of A (high level of creditworthiness) on Nevsky Bank. The rating outlook was left at negative, the agency noted in a press release.
Among key positive factors the agency named high capital adequacy, a decent liquidity cushion and acceptable coverage of the credit portfolio. The rating was backed by high coverage of operating costs by net interest and commission income. The bank's high information transparency positively affects the rating, RAEX specified.
The rating's damper is the modest quality of the corporate credit portfolio. The bank's creditworthiness is also limited by low rates of return and high sensitivity of the resource base to cash flows in a group of companies that is linked to the bank's owner.
The negative rating outlook is determined by settlement operations with corporate clients, which remain wide compared to the bank's scope of business amid some drawbacks in risk management and internal control systems. In 2015, the bank took measures to improve efficiency of these systems, but it remains exposed to regulatory risks," RAEX managing director for banking ratings Stanislav Volkov noted.
