The Bank of Ceylon’s (BOC) national long-term rating has been upgraded to ‘AA-(lka)’ from ‘A(lka)’ by Fitch Ratings in their latest rating review.

According to the latest announcement made by Fitch upgrading BOC’s national ratings, the national rating upgrade is driven by the upgrade of the sovereign’s long-term local currency issuer default rating and the recalibration of the national rating scale.

Fitch has highlighted that the BOC’s national rating upgrade reflects the relative creditworthiness of BOC to other Sri Lankan issuers.

Fitch has further stated that the sovereign’s credit profile improvement has alleviated sovereign-related stresses on the bank’s operating environment as well as on financial and non-financial factors, due to the strong link between the sovereign’s financial health and the bank’s credit profile.

Moreover, in Fitch’s recent international ratings review, Fitch has upgraded BOC’s long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings (IDRs) to ‘CCC+’ from ‘CCC-’, the viability rating (VR) to ‘ccc+’ from ‘ccc-’ and affirmed short-term IDR at ‘C’.