The Pakistan Credit Rating Agency (PACRA) has maintained the long-term and short-term entity ratings of NIB Bank Limited at “A+” (Single A Plus) and “A1” (A One), respectively. The ratings have been assigned a positive outlook. These ratings denote a low expectation of credit risk emanating from a strong capacity for timely payment of financial commitments.

The ratings reflect the bank’s high-risk absorption capacity, and very strong financial profile and international identity of the principal shareholder – Temasek. The rating also take into account the management’s well-conceived strategy for aggressive penetration into Commercial, SMEs and Consumer segments through roll out of robust models with specially tailored products. While confronting the challenges of a bank of relatively recent origin, the management, in a short span of time, has made impressive progress in building a quality team, requisite infrastructure, and systems and processes, and is well geared to launch its overall business plans.

NIB’s ratings have been assigned a positive outlook, based on the potential benefits to arise from aggressive growth in the target markets. However, given the relatively high risk nature of the targeted segments and the intensifying competition in the sector, the extent of impact of implementation of the business plans on performance, and the related effectiveness of the support processes and risk management systems remains to be seen.

About the bank: NIB Bank Ltd. (Formerly NDLC-IFIC Bank) was formed on October 03, 2003 as a result of the amalgamation of the National Development Leasing Corporation Limited (NDLC) and Pakistan Branches of International Finance Investment and Commerce Bank Limited -Bangladesh (IFIC). Later in April 2004, the bank acquired the Pakistan operations of Credit Agricole Indosuez (CAI), the Global French bank. NIB is listed on all the three stock exchanges in Pakistan, and currently has a network of 27 braches.