OREANDA-NEWS. National Rating Agency has reaffirmed its national scale 'A' credit rating on Legion JSCB.

The rating action reflects Legion Bank's good liquidity position and growing liquid assets, including quick assets; owners commitment to developing the bank (including capital injections in 2013-14) and stable customer base. NRA also note the bank's adequate loan loss provisioning and lending policy improvement, in particular the tightening of collateral assessment criteria and borrowers' credit control requirements.

The rating is constrained by the bank's poorly diversified funding base, dominated by retails deposits (over 76% of the total), significant single name concentration in the loan book with the 20 largest loans representing more than 24% of total loans and the weakening of profitability metrics last year.