NAIROBI, Kenya June 22-Fitch Ratings has affirmed KCB Group’s and its core banking subsidiary KCB Bank Kenya LongTerm Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at ‘B+’ with a negative outlook.
This is after the rating agency withdrew its support rating and support rating floor of KCB Bank and KCB Group as they are no longer relevant to the agency’s coverage following the publication of its updated Bank Rating Criteria on November 12, 2021.
In line with the updated criteria, Fitch assigned a Government Support Rating (GSR) of ‘b+’ to KCB Bank and ‘no support’ (ns) to KCB Group.
“KCB Group’s and KCB Bank’s Long-Term IDRs are driven by their standalone creditworthiness, as expressed by their Viability Ratings (VRs) of ‘b+’,” said Fitch.
KCB Group’s GSR of ‘ns’ reflects Fitch’s view that government support is unlikely to extend to a non-operating bank holding company given its low systemic importance and a liability structure that may be more politically acceptable to be bailed-in.
KCB Bank’s GSR of ‘b+’ considers a high propensity of the authorities to provide support to the bank given its systemic importance but also Kenya’s limited financial flexibility, as captured in the sovereign rating
Further, the agency noted that the National Ratings of KCB Group and KCB Bank reflect their relative creditworthiness within Kenya.
Fitch revised KCB Group’s Outlook on the National Long-Term Ratings to stable from negative as it does not expect any change to the entities’ creditworthiness relative to domestic peers’.
On asset quality, the rating agency noted that KCB Group’s asset quality metrics have deteriorated since the pandemic and are weaker than peers.
The banks’ impaired loans remained at a high 16.3 per cent at end-2021 while total loan loss allowance coverage of impaired loans fell to 57.3% at end-2021, well below the Group’s target of 75 per cebt.
Even so, KCB’s profitability recovered strongly in 2021 due to the sharp fall in loan impairment charges (LICs), despite asset-quality pressures.
Fitch expects the Group’s earnings to remain strong given its franchise strengths but expects some pressure on profitability in 2022 from LICs amid elevated impaired loans and moderate provisioning levels.
