The credit rating of CentroCredit Bank (hereinafter, CentroCredit or the Bank) is based on the moderate assessment of its business profile, strong capital position, critical risk profile assessment, and the adequate funding and liquidity assessment.
CentroCredit is a medium-sized universal bank in terms of assets, specializing in lending to capital-intensive projects of medium-sized and large businesses, providing a wide range of guarantees, and carrying out operations with securities both within its own portfolio and as part of brokerage services to clients.
KEY ASSESSMENT FACTORS
The moderate (bb+) business profile assessment primarily reflects the Bank’s limited market positions in the industry — as of October 1, 2025, CentroCredit was among the 40 largest Russian credit institutions in terms of capital, with the share of its corporate portfolio not exceeding 0.1% of the banking sector. Diversification of operating income is moderate and the shares of the sources if this income are instable due to the Bank’s specialization and the relatively volatile structure of its assets. The core management team of the Bank was formed over 20 years ago and, in the Agency’s opinion, has sufficient experience and qualifications. ACRA also notes the high level of involvement of beneficiaries in CentroCredit’s activities.
The strong capital position takes into account the comfortable capital adequacy ratios (N1.2 was 16.53% as of October 1, 2025), as well as the Bank’s strong ability to generate equity capital, even taking into account significant losses for 2022. The averaged capital generation ratio (ACGR) calculated for 2020 to 2024, including dividend payments, is above 200 bps. The Agency does not expect the ratio to decline significantly because the Bank continues to consistently record positive financial results — the after-tax profit for 9M 2025 under RAS exceeded RUB 6 bln. Operating efficiency indicators are generally assessed as acceptable: with a neutral value of the ratio of operating costs to operating income (CTI), the net interest margin (NIM) calculated by ACRA over the past three years exceeds the corresponding values of peer credit institutions. Stress testing conducted in accordance with the Agency’s methodology showed that the Bank is able to withstand an increase in the cost of risk of over 500 bps without violating the main capital adequacy ratios.
The critical risk profile reflects the heightened level of non-performing and potential non-performing debt in the loan portfolio amid a significant (more than 60% of the portfolio) concentration on the largest groups of borrowers, as well as an extremely high level of market risks. A special feature of CentroCredit’s lending policy is the financing of large projects that are at an early stage of the production cycle and do not meet the formal criteria of high credit quality (more than 70% of the portfolio is loans of the fourth and fifth quality categories), which requires the credit institution to have an increased level of reserves and take more flexible approaches to interaction with borrowers. The result of this is a frequent revision of the terms and duration of the loans provided. The volume of lending to high-risk industries (construction, real estate and development) is generally low. The bulk of CentroCredit’s assets (more than 60% of the balance sheet) is debt securities in repurchase agreements and measured at fair value through profit and loss. An additional factor that limits the risk profile assessment is the heightened market risk. The Bank reduces the individual impact of the components of market risk (in terms of, for example, stock market risk) using hedging instruments. The Agency assesses the Bank’s risk management as satisfactory.
Adequate funding and liquidity assessment. CentroCredit has a sufficient reserve of liquid assets to withstand an outflow of funds under both ACRA’s base case and stress scenarios in the short term. The Bank adheres to key ratios with a margin of safety (as of October 1, 2025, N2 was 75.7% and N3 was 102.5%). CentroCredit takes into account the duration of its loan portfolio when balancing assets and liabilities over a horizon of more than 12 months. The long-term liquidity shortage indicator (LTLSI) is also strong, and the N4 ratio was 16.6% as of October 1, 2025. ACRA notes the regular accumulation of significant amounts of cash on the Bank’s balance sheet, which is associated with large dividend payments.
The main share of the resource base (85.8% of the balance sheet liabilities) is funds borrowed under repurchase agreements with credit institutions. The remaining share is well balanced between the funds of individuals and corporate clients, promissory notes, and brokerage account balances. The concentration of liabilities by groups of largest creditors reflects the specifics of the funding base diversification.
KEY ASSUMPTIONS
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Maintaining the current business profile.
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Maintaining profitability of operations.
POTENTIAL OUTLOOK OR RATING CHANGE FACTORS
The Stable outlook assumes that the rating will highly likely stay unchanged within the 12 to 18-month horizon.
A positive rating action may be prompted by:
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Considerable improvement of asset quality;
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Improvement of the Bank’s market positions due to expansion of business lines;
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Lower pressure from market risks.
A negative rating action may be prompted by:
- Significant decline of business stability, in particular due to the materialization of credit or market risks.
RATING COMPONENTS
Standalone creditworthiness assessment (SCA): bb+.
Adjustments: none.
Support: none.
ISSUE RATINGS
No outstanding issues have been rated.
REGULATORY DISCLOSURE
The credit rating has been assigned to CentroCredit based on the following methodologies: the Methodology for Assigning Credit Ratings to Banks and Bank Groups under the National Scale for the Russian Federation to calculate the SCA and determine the credit rating and the credit rating outlook of CentroCredit under the national scale for the Russian Federation; the Key Concepts Used by the Analytical Credit Rating Agency within the Scope of Its Rating Activities to ensure consistent and uniform application of ACRA’s methodologies, models, and key rating assumptions.
The credit rating of CentroCredit under the national scale for the Russian Federation was published by ACRA for the first time on December 9, 2024.
The credit rating and its outlook are expected to be revised within one year.
The credit rating is assigned based on data provided by CentroCredit, information from publicly available sources, and ACRA’s own databases. The rating analysis was performed using the IFRS financial statements of CentroCredit as of June 30, 2025 and the financial statements of CentroCredit drawn up in compliance with the requirements of the Bank of Russia.
The credit rating is solicited and CentroCredit participated in its assignment.
In assigning the credit rating, ACRA used only information, the quality and reliability of which were, in ACRA’s opinion, appropriate and sufficient to apply the methodologies.
ACRA provided no additional services to CentroCredit during the year preceding the rating action.
No conflicts of interest were discovered in the course of credit rating assignment.
