Fitch Ratings Worries over UralTransBank’s Bad Debt

UrBC, Moscow, July 27, 2011. The international rating agency Fitch Ratings affirmed UralTransBank’s Issuer Default Rating at B-, with Stable rating outlook.

The agency reports the affirmation of the rating reflects the improvement in the post-recession operating environment supporting the bank’s profitability and the lending portfolio performance figures; this improvement also makes up (to some extent) for the significant drop in the quality of assets observed in the past.

Fitch Ratings says the bank’s lending portfolio shrank by 7% in 2010, whereas the share of bad debt constituted 21% of all the loans issued by UralTransBank. In addition, prolonged and restructured loans made up another 13.2% of the portfolio. The loans quality remained virtually the same in 2011, with the share of bad debt coming to 18% and the share of prolonged and restructured loans coming to 11.6% by the end of the first half of the year.