Banking

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has lowered its long-term counterparty credit ratings on Alfa-Bank Ukraine, JSC Kredobank [ZUKB UZ, U/R], and Ukrsotsbank [UCSB UZ, U/R] to 'B' from 'B+' and removed them from CreditWatch where they were placed with negative implications on October 16, 2008.

Three banks that rank among Ukraine’s major banks have taken action to increase the situation with regards to their respective liquidity.

The Council of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has called for the nationalization of the Kyiv-based Prominvestbank (PIB).

Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG has provided a US 180 mln term loan to Ukraine’s Open Joint Stock Company "Raiffeisen Bank Aval" [BAVL UZ, U/R]. The agreement was signed on October 13, 2008 and will mature on December 31, 2009 with the option of being extended until December 31, 2010.

For the first three quarters of 2008, Ukraine’s Bank Forum [FORM UZ, N/R] has reported an increase in net profits by 87.5% on the year to UAH 68.9 mln (equivalent to USD 13.43 mln or EUR 9.83 mln).

On Wednesday, the international rating agency Standard & Poor’s announced that it had revised its outlook about the long-term counterparty credit ratings of three Ukrainian banks from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’.