Dec 05 ( Lagos ) : United Bank for Africa’s ( UBA ) Long term Issuer default Rating ( IDR ) was upstaged by the foremost rating agency ‘B+’; with a stable outlook. Their viability rating was also given a boost from ‘B’ to ‘B+’. This boost was fuelled by their constant improvement in the financial performance metrics, funding, liquidity and capitalisation.

The agency also labeled the second-tier bank as “Nigeria’s most international bank, operating in 20 other Sub-Saharan African countries. Its objective is to operate as a Pan-African commercial bank. Our assessment is that geographic diversification is credit positive because it provides growth opportunities and can reduce exposure to Nigeria’s cynical economic growth trends.”

The funding and liquidity profile of the company also backed up its upgrade to business class, as the Bank’s local currency funding profile is a rating strength. While, as of H1’18, their loans/deposit ratio is 58%, which is quite low as compared to its other banking counterparts. Their deposit base is also reportedly better than their peers: as it is quite diverse by single customer and their retails deposits represent approximately one-third of customer deposits, which is higher than the average rated for peers.

Of course, UBA just won the Euromoney’s Best digital banking award, which continues to attract deposit inflows. Their local currency liquidity ratios are quite decent and the issue of $ 500 million senior medium term bond on the international capital markets in June’17 soothed the pressure on the group’s overall foreign currency liquidity position.

Reporting for EasyKobo on Wednesday , 05 December 2018 in Lagos, Nigeria