Leading business position and improving geographic diversification. Above-average funding and strong liquidity. Strong capitalization, supported by sound pre-provision earnings capacity. High likelihood that the Saudi Arabian government will provide extraordinary support in the event of financial distress. Concentration risks in the lending book. Increasing credit risks stemming from expanding operations in Turkey. Standard&Poor's Rating Services negative outlook on Saudi Arabia-based The National Commercial Bank (NCB) mirrors our negative outlook on Saudi Arabia. All things being equal, if we lowered the rating on Saudi Arabia, we would lower the long-term issuer credit rating on NCB and remove the one notch of uplift for extraordinary government support, in line with our criteria. We could revise the outlook to stable if
