We are raising the long-term issuer credit rating on Bank of Queensland (BoQ) to 'A-' and assigning it a stable outlook. The rating upgrade reflects our expectation that Bank of Queensland Ltd. (BoQ) will maintain a risk-adjusted capital (RAC) ratio above 15% over the medium-to-long term. In the current economic risk environment, we believe that BoQ's earnings would be sufficient to maintain its RAC ratio above 15%. In our opinion, if economic risks faced by banks in Australia were to worsen, (resulting in a revision of our economic risk score on the Australian banking system to "3" from "2") BoQ would have the flexibility to implement capital management initiatives to maintain its RAC ratio above 15%. On Sept. 4, 2013,
