Moody’s Investors Service has upgraded the long-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings of Alpha Bank Romania (ABR) to Ba2 from Ba3 and its Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) to b1 from b2.

The outlook on the long-term deposit ratings has been changed to stable from positive.

The upgrade follows the upgrade of the ratings of Alpha Bank AE (Deposit ratings: to Caa1 stable from Caa2 positive, BCA: to caa1 from caa2), the parent bank of Alpha Bank Romania.

ABR’s asset risk has improved significantly with the ratio of nonperforming loans to gross loans declining to 5.95% of gross exposure as of September 2018, from 13.3% as of December 2016, broadly in line with the 5.6% ratio of problem loans of Romanian banks as of September 2018.