Published: September 27, 2010
Agency points to resilience and strong financial fundamentals.
Saudi Arabia’s banking system has “resilience and strong financial fundamentals”, says rating agency Moody’s.
In the firm’s annual report on the kingdom’s banking sector, it gives the system a stable outlook. “The Saudi banking system's current and historically strong financial fundamentals highlight its resilience during a period when operating conditions have been challenging,” says Christos Theofilou, Moody’s lead analyst for Saudi banks.
Theofilou adds that this resilience is supported by the government's fiscal stimulus and the banks’ liquidity, profitability and capitalisation.
The agency says that growth is likely to remain below pre-crisis level, but that banks’ 2010/2011 net income should be “modestly higher” than in the past two years because of expected lower provisioning charges.