The Bangladesh operations of Commercial Bank PLC have been upgraded to AAA (triple A) for long-term credit and reaffirmed as ST-1 for short- term credit by Credit Rating Information and Services Ltd (CRISL).
This upgrade follows the AA + ratings received by the bank’s Bangladesh operations for the past three consecutive years from CRISL.
The bank said the ratings are based on financial performance of Commercial Bank up to December 31, 2010 and other qualitative and quantitative information relevant to the date of rating, June 28, 2011. This includes the bank’s continuous maintenance of strong fundamentals in the area of capital adequacy, asset quality, financial and operating efficiency and risk management.
CRISL has stated that it has viewed the bank with ‘Stable Outlook,’ believes that bank will be able to maintain its strong fundamentals in future, and does not foresee any volatility in the operation of the bank within the validity period of rating.
“The Bangladesh operation has always justified the Bank’s decision to venture beyond Sri Lanka,” Commercial Bank’s Managing Director Amitha Gooneratne said, disclosing that in 2010 the Bank’s Bangladesh operations had grown even faster than the Sri Lankan operation and had contributed 15 % of the bank’s net profit of Rs 5.5 billion.
“The population of Bangladesh is around 150 million and we believe that our operations will grow from the 17 branches we have at present to be as large as our operation in Sri Lanka a decade from now,” Mr Gooneratne added. |
E-mail
