An ABBANK’s transaction office. With its profitability and status of problem assets improved significantly, ABBANK expects to get a higher credit rating for the rest of the year. — Photo courtesy of the bank

HCM CITY — Moody's Investors Service has assigned a B1 rating for An Bình Commercial Joint Stock Bank’s long-term domestic and foreign currency deposit, one spot higher than the lender’s baseline credit assessments.

It assessed ABBANK's liquidity as strong.

In the second quarter, ABBANK’s profitability and status of problem assets improved significantly, and it is expected to get a higher credit rating for the rest of the year.

Moody’s said that it could upgrade the long-term rating of ABBANK if its ratio of tangible common equity to risk-weighted assets is above 9.3 per cent.

The bank recorded an 85 per cent increase in pre-tax profits in the first half of the year to VNĐ1.2 trillion (US$52.3 million).

Return on assets and return on equity were 2.2 per cent and 25.33 per cent.

Its capital adequacy ratio at the end of June was 11.97 per cent, well above the State Bank of Vietnam’s prescribed level of 8 per cent and the industry average of 10.63 per cent.

It has got approval from the State Bank of Vietnam to further increase its charter capital to nearly VNĐ10 trillion ($435.96 million). — VNS