Mubasher: The Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) on Thursday revealed that the global rating agency Standard & Poor's Financial Services (S&P) has affirmed its short-term rating at “A-2” and long-term rating at “BBB+”.
The rating agency has also changed the bank's outlook to stable instead of negative, according to the lender’s statement to the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE).
S&P has cited CBQ as Qatar’s third largest bank due to its healthy capitalisation and ongoing work to reshape its loans book toward lower risk sectors.
The rating reflects the lender’s good franchise in Qatar as the third-largest bank in the system, S&P said.
However, the bank holds 14% of its assets in liquid form and has another 10% in highly rated government bonds.
Earlier this months, the global rating agency changed Qatar’s rating to stable due to its macroeconomic resilience, and the affirmation of Qatar’s “AA-/A-1+” sovereign ratings.
This comes due to the country's effective management of the fallout from the ongoing boycott related to trade and financial flows.
“We are achieving everything that we set out to do two years ago in terms of careful management of our capital position, taking provisions for our legacy loan book, reducing our cost to income ratio, de-risking and re-shaping our balance sheet, and continuing to build our franchise based on innovation and new technology. We are pleased by this recognition by S&P of Commercial Bank’s ability to deliver against our strategic plan,” Joseph Abraham, CEO of CBQ, commented.
By 11:59 am Qatar time, CBQ’s stock declined 2.15% at QAR 40.30.
