Moody's assigns Counterparty Risk Assessments to six Azerbaijani banks

-- Ba2(cr) to International Bank of Azerbaijan

-- Ba3(cr) to OJSC Bank of Baku and VTB Bank (Azerbaijan)

-- B1(cr) to UniBank Commercial Bank, Joint Stock Commercal Bank

Respublika and OJSC Xalq Bank

Concurrently, Not-Prime(cr) short-term CR Assessments have been assigned to all the above-mentioned banks.

Moody's has also affirmed the ratings and assessments of International Bank of Azerbaijan, UniBank Commercial Bank and Joint Stock Commercal Bank Respublika and changed the outlooks on their long-term debt ratings to stable from positive, given the challenging operating environment in Azerbaijan (Baa3 stable), that pressures the banks' financial fundamentals. 

Other bank-specific reasons for the affirmations that partly offset the weak operating environment can be found below, under "Bank Specific Factors".