Credit-Rating Agency has today announced that it assigned bank deposit ratings to 73 Ukraine-based banks, which are currently the agency's customers. Piraeus Bank ICB and six more banks have been assigned the highest deposit rating.

According to Credit-Rating Agency, unlike banks counterparty ratings, which exhibit bank's long-term financial strength, the bank deposit rating mirrors bank's capacity to timely and in full make payments on existing deposits within the next 12 months. The bank deposit rating is assigned pursuant to specially designed rating scale and indicates deposit's strength relatively to deposits in other Ukrainian banks.

According to Piraeus Bank's Country Manager for Ukraine Yannis Kyriakopoulos such high rating reflects the prudence exercised by the bank in extending loans and the commitment to best practices when dealing with depositors.

Moreover, the increase of the Authorized Capital by UAH 110 mln will allow to further strengthen the bank's capital adequacy and liquidity, - Mr. Kyriakopoulos stated. – Being convinced in reliability and stability of Piraeus Bank work, the depositors have positively perceived the deposit promo "Christmas Offer. Happy 20,09%", which was carried out by the bank in December 2008 – February 2009. However most of the inflow of new customers and money we have seen comes to our new savings account Free which now offers 15% in hryvnia.

Credit-Ratings CEO Mr. Stanislav Dubko believes that bank deposit ratings may help potential depositors select the most reliable banks and the depositors, whose deposit agreements will soon expire, decide on prolongation of the agreements. Credit-Rating has also subscribes to the opinion that bank deposit ratings may contribute to halting outflow of deposits from strong institutions, overcoming panic and to raising confidence to the banking system.

According to the Credit-Rating information, the Agency will further maintain all of the ratings published using information furnished by the banks. Current bank's deposit ratings will be uploaded to the agency's web-site. In the course of the rating analysis and monitoring Credit-Rating examines bank's current liquidity, structure and concentration of resources, concentration and quality of assets, balance of assets and liabilities by their due terms, bank's vulnerability to adverse commercial, financial and economic conditions, and access to external funding and level of dependency upon such sources.

Note. Founded in 2001 Credit-Rating is the first rating agency in Ukraine commited to assessment of issuer's solvency and to assignment of credit ratings pursuant to the National rating scale. Since 2003 the agency's rating estimations have been officially recognized by Ministry of Finance of Ukraine. Since 2004 Credit-Rating has been an authorized agency of State Commission for Securities and Stock Market for assigning ratings to economic entities, to industries and municipalities. Starting from 2007 the agency assigns corporate governance ratings.

Piraeus Bank is one of the major banking institutions of Southern and Eastern Europe with assets of 55 bln (as of 31.12.2008). Established in 1916, Piraeus Bank today has presence in Greece, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Egypt, Serbia, Cyprus as well as in the world financial centres of New York and London. Piraeus Bank S.A. leads Piraeus Bank Group, which consists of 9 banks and 21 companies covering the entire range of financial services. The Group's personnel are more than 14000 employees.

OJSC "Piraeus Bank ICB" is a legal successor of OJSC "International Commerce Bank", a Ukrainian bank acquired by Piraeus Bank in September 2007. The regional network of Piraeus Bank ICB covers 13 regions of Ukraine.

Piraeus Bank is a member of Association of Ukrainian Banks and a participant of the Fund of Guaranteeing the Deposits of Individuals.

Piraeus Bank Press Service in Ukraine
Andriy Sakhno
phone/fax: +38(044)495-8888
e-mail: asakhno@piraeusbank.ua