HONG KONG (Standard&Poor's) Aug. 21, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its issuer credit ratings and outlook on Bank of China Ltd. (BOC: A/Stable/A-1; cnAA+/cnA-1) are not affected by the bank's results for the first half of 2014. The results showed that the bank's asset quality was under pressure, and were within our expectation. We expect asset quality will continue to deteriorate in the second half of the year, which could lower the growth of core earnings. BOC's profitability was stable, with the reported return on assets remaining about 1.27%. However, the 14.12% increase in net interest income and the 14.6% growth in fee and commission income masked the doubling in loss provisions. Net interest margins
