Bulletin: Sharp Loan Quality Deterioration Could Put Pressure On Ratings On Bank Of East Asia And Its China Subsidiary

HONG KONG (S&P Global Ratings) Feb. 21, 2017-- S&P Global Ratings said today that the ratings on the Bank of East Asia Limited (BEA: A/Negative/A-1; cnAA+/cnA-1) could come under pressure if loan quality sharply deteriorates this year. The deterioration was manageable for 2016, in our view, based on the group's full-year operating results announced on Feb. 17, 2017. Our ratings on BEA and its China subsidiary, Bank of East Asia (China) Limited (A/Negative/A-1; cnAA+/cnA-1) are therefore unaffected. We expect BEA's loan quality to continue to weaken but not more severely than the industry average in Hong Kong or China. BEA group's impaired loan ratio rose to 1.49% by the end of December 2016 from 1.13% a year earlier. The impaired

...HONG KONG (S&P Global Ratings) Feb. 21, 2017-- S&P Global Ratings said today that the ratings on the Bank of East Asia Limited (BEA: A/Negative/A-1; cnAA+/cnA-1) could come under pressure if loan quality sharply deteriorates this year. The deterioration was manageable for 2016, in our view, based on the group's full-year operating results announced on Feb. 17, 2017. Our ratings on BEA and its China subsidiary, Bank of East Asia (China) Limited (A/Negative/A-1; cnAA+/cnA-1) are therefore unaffected. We expect BEA's loan quality to continue to weaken but not more severely than the industry average in Hong Kong or China. BEA group's impaired loan ratio rose to 1.49% by the end of December 2016 from 1.13% a year earlier. The impaired loan ratio for BEA's mainland China operations deteriorated to 2.87% as of December 2016 from 2.63% in December 2015. The impaired loan ratio for Hong Kong also rose notably to 1% from 0.30% a year earlier. The ratio was affected by renminbi volatility and pressure...

Bulletin