Standard & Poor's repots that the merger of OAO AKB Rosbank with a few Russia-based daughter enterprises of Bank Société Générale is not going to affect Rosbank’s ratings immediately.

Société Générale (SocGen; A+/Stable /A-1) and Interros’s Rosbank (BB+/Negative /B; national scale rating: ruAA+) announced the news on February 18, 2010.

Rosbank and Bank Société Générale Vostok (a universal bank with no rating) will merge into a single structure but will both keep their independent brands, while OOO Rusfinans Bank (a bank dealing in consumer loans with no rating) and ZAO KB DeltaCredit (a bank dealing in mortgages with no rating) will become the united bank’s 100% daughter enterprises.

Standard & Poor's analysts believe Rosbank’s current ratings correspond with the high level of the Russian banking sector’s systemic risks.

‘However, we expect Rosbank’s strategically important position within SocGen Group, its business platform and a noticeable share of the Russian market to counterbalance these negative factors. Given the support of SocGen, which will own 81.5% of the new bank, Rosbank’s long-term credit rating is now three steps higher than its own lending capacity,’ the agency reports.