ABA Bank becomes the first bank in Cambodia with international credit ratings

ABA Bank, member of the National Bank of Canada Group, announces today the assignment of ‘B’ long-term and short-term issuer credit ratings from Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Global Ratings, one of the world’s leading credit rating agencies. S&P Global Ratings also assigned 'axB+' long-term and 'axB' short-term ASEAN regional scale ratings to ABA Bank. 

This recognition denotes ABA’s strong creditworthiness, transparent governance structure, and speaks of the stable position in the local market.

“We are excited about the results of the S&P’s ‘B’ rating that is the same as Cambodian sovereign rating. It validates our strong financial status in the banking industry,” said Askhat Azhikhanov, CEO of ABA Bank. “The stable, solid results ABA Bank delivered in the last five years is in fact what earned us the high rating from S&P. We are also pleased that Standard and Poor’s recognized the value of our business model and sees the benefits it brings to our customers and our shareholders.” 

The S&P experts evaluated ABA as a fast-growing commercial bank, which has an adequate and improving market position, as well as a satisfactory funding and liquidity profile. Being a full-fledged commercial bank, ABA Bank started to focus on higher-yield, micro-business and SME borrowers since 2012 and has been registering above-industry-average, rapid credit growth since then (at 53% compound annual growth rate during 2012-2016). The bank's market position has been constantly improving. As of the end of 2016, ABA Bank was the fourth-largest bank in Cambodia in terms of loans and deposits market share, up from ninth and tenth place in 2010. Likewise, its reported return on equity (measure of profitability and efficiency that defines how much profit the bank generates on shareholders' capital) jumped to 22.5% by end-2016 from 9.5% in 2012. 

"The bank's funding and liquidity profile appears adequate in a Cambodian context, in our opinion," Rujun Duan, S&P Global Ratings credit analyst commented in the recently published press release.