Bank of punjab: PACRA withdraws negative outlook

LAHORE: The negative outlook earlier assigned to the Bank of Punjab’s (BOP’s) ratings has been withdrawn by the Pakistan Credit Rating Agency (Pacra). The assigned stable outlook captures the improvement in the bank’s financial profile that would enable it to build up to fundamentals more commensurate with existing ratings. While completing the rating update process subsequent to release of pending financial statements of the BOP, Pacra has maintained long term and short term entity ratings of The Bank of Punjab at AA- and A1+ respectively. These ratings denote a very low expectation of credit risk emanating from a very strong capacity for timely payment of financial commitments. The ratings primarily reflect strong association of the bank with the Government of Punjab as majority shareholder, which has benefited the bank in terms of capital acquisition, sustainable deposit base, and relaxation for provisioning

against major infected exposures.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2012.