Al Baraka Banking Group (ABG) said that Standard and Poors (S&P) has rated its subsidiary Jordan Islamic Bank for the first time, assigning it a long term counterparty credit rating of BB/B (short term) with a stable outlook.

Jordan Islamic Bank is the largest Islamic Bank in Jordan, owned 66 per cent by ABG.

The S&P country rating for Jordan is also BB/B with a stable outlook.

S&P said that the rating of Jordan Islamic Bank reflected the overall resilience of the bank, its good track record in terms of asset quality, satisfactory funding and liquidity profile supported by a strong retail franchise and leading position in the Islamic banking market in Jordan.

It added that the strategy of the bank emphasises on sustained growth and further enhancement of the systems and integration within ABG.

"The rating of Jordan Islamic Bank by S&P for the first time is indeed a significant step for the bank in its move towards a wider profile and business positioning," ABG president and chief executive and Jordan Islamic Bank chairman Adnan Ahmed Yousif said.

"The bank has shown excellent growth in all its financial fundamentals over the years and has shown consistently good results even through the economic downturn," he added.

The bank has a strong and faithful customer base as it conducts its activities strictly under the Sharia, adding value to the economy and all of its stakeholders," Jordan Islamic Bank vice-chairman and chief executive Musa Shihadeh said.

"It has a well diversified financing portfolio covering many sectors of the economy.”

"The rating by S&P is an endorsement of the excellent manner in which the bank is perceived in the Jordanian and international markets and will give it the impetus to do even better in the future," he added. – TradeArabia News Service