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Thomas Murray has upgraded The National Depository Center’s (NDC) Public CSD Rating to AA-, which means very low risk. The outlook is ‘Stable’. The rating is made up of the following components:
| Public CSD Rating |
NDC Rating |
| Overall Rating |
AA- |
| Asset Commitment Risk |
A+ |
| Liquidity Risk |
A+ |
| Counterparty Risk |
A+ |
| Financial Risk |
AA |
| Operational Risk |
AA- |
| Asset Servicing Risk |
AA- |
The AA- rating as assigned by Thomas Murray reaffirms NDC’s strong financial position and the low participant exposure to risk across NDC’s operations. The outlook has been assigned as ‘Stable’ which suggests that there are no imminent developments that may change the rating at this stage.
The upgrade in the rating recognises NDC’s commitment to develop and strengthen its processes and systems in an ongoing effort to minimise risk for market participants. In this respect NDC has made substantial progress over the past year particularly in reducing counterparty, financial and operational risk.
The Counterparty Risk rating has been improved from A to A+. This recognises the changes to the participant criteria that are being introduced which presumes that MICEX/NDC clients are mostly professional market participants licensed through the Federal Financial Markets Service [FFMS]. Effective January 2008, FFMS began a programme to impose higher capital requirements on all licensed bodies. These bodies are also required to report financial and trading information to both FFMS and MICEX.
Financial Risk rating has improved from AA- to AA following the further increase in insurance coverage to USD 50 million, (previously USD 25 million) in August 2007, and the increase in capital to RUB 1.35 billion (approx USD 55 million, previously USD 35 million), as at the end of 2007. Profits have continued despite the reduction in safekeeping fees by 15%. Also, the cost of the new settlement system ‘Eclearsettle’, a three year project, has been largely absorbed over the last two years.
NDC have maintained the momentum of continuous improvement in operational areas to mitigate operational risk over the last year, and as a result, Operational Risk has been upgraded to AA-.
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