Moody’s assigns Counterparty Risk Assessments to five Egyptian Banks

Moody’s Investors Service assigned Tuesday counterparty risk assessments (CR Assessments) to five Egyptian banks.

It has assigned CR Assessments of B3(cr) to state-owned the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), Banque Du Caire, and Banque Misr; B2(cr) to Commercial International Bank (CIB); and B1(cr) to Bank of Alexandria (AlexBank). Concurrently Not-Prime (cr) short-term CR Assessments have been assigned to all the banks, according to the ratings agency’s statement.

Moody’s upgraded in April the local currency (LC) deposit ratings of five Egyptian banks following an upgrade to the country’s sovereign credit ratings to ‘B3’. The National Bank of Egypt, the Commercial International Bank, Banque Misr and Banque Du Caire were upgraded to ‘B3’ with a stable outlook. Bank of Alexandria SAE was also upgraded to ‘B2’ from ‘B3’.

On 7 April, Moody’s upgraded Egypt’s issuer and senior unsecured bond ratings to B3 from Caa1, with a ‘Stable’ outlook. The rating upgrade was based on several factors, namely improving macro-economic performance, a reduction in external vulnerabilities and the government’s ongoing commitment to fiscal and economic reform, according to Moody’s.