Fitch maintains BOC’s National Rating at ‘A(lka)’/RWN

Fitch Ratings (Fitch) affirmed Bank of Ceylon’s (BOC) Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘CC’, on June 13, 2023.
At the same time, Fitch has maintained BOC’s Long-Term Local-Currency IDR of ‘CCC-’ and National Rating of ‘A(lka)’ on Rating Watch Negative (RWN). Fitch has also affirmed BOC’s Short-Term IDR at ‘C’, Viability Rating (VR) at ‘cc’ and Government Support Rating at ‘ns’.
The bank’s Long-Term Local-Currency IDR is one notch above that of Sri Lanka, reflecting a lower risk that the authorities will impose restrictions on banks servicing their local-currency obligations than non-payment by the sovereign.

Fitch has further stated that the bank’s local-currency funding and liquidity position is currently more manageable and the stress on foreign-currency liquidity has eased as reflected in the bank having met its obligations.
As Sri Lanka’s premier financial service organisation, with over eight decades of leadership in the industry, BOC’s contribution to the socioeconomic prosperity of Sri Lanka is remarkable. The bank has reported Rs.32.0 billion of profit after tax (PAT) for the year ended on December 31, 2022 and Rs.3.3 billion of PAT for the three-month period ended on March 31, 2023, amidst the unprecedented challenges continued to prevail from last few years.
The bank has not transferred the full impact of market interest rates hike to its loyal customers, in order to sustain their lives and revive their businesses in this difficult era, despite the negative effect to the bottom line. 
Despite the never experienced challenges, the bank has been able to maintain its position and steering the bank strongly and prudently in the next few years is of utmost importance and is on a pathway to stable growth with a growing market share and an increasing asset base made possible through scaling up of digitisation, pursuit of operational efficiencies and expert capacity of the cadre. 
The bank has already identified the key challenges yet to be faced by the banking industry, due to the contraction of the economy and slow growth, debt restructuring programme and other government fiscal reforms. Based on these challenges, the Sri Lankan banking industry will have to face a never experienced operating context. 
BOC, as the largest local commercial bank of the country, it is vital to carefully manage the banking activities to support economic recovery and revival at large. Hence, in the next couple of years, the bank’s key focus will be strengthening its balance sheet, instead of short-term profitability. Similarly, the bank has adopted the same strongly during last few years too.
Among the recent exertions towards a better serving for the customers, expansion of the Business Revival Units at province level, provision of moratoria to crisis-affected businesses, extension of support to retail customers, concessionary development lending to MSMEs and underserved groups, concerted support for export-oriented businesses, SMEs and expatriate Sri Lankans through BOC Export Circle, SME Circle and Foreign Circle, expansion of the bank’s rural-focused agent banking network – BOC Connect and pioneering of new and innovative products like social media banking via BOC Meta Banking, etc. are notable.