OREANDA-NEWS. December 18, 2007. Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Baa1 global local currency long-term senior unsecured debt rating as well as a Aaa.ua long-term National Scale Rating (NSR) to the Series "E" and "F" of local currency (Ukraine's hryvnia) denominated bonds to be issued by Raiffeisen Bank Aval, which will represent a senior unsecured claim on the bank, the bank's press service reports.

The outlook for the global rating is stable, while the NSR carries no specific outlook.

The amount of Series E and F is expected to be UAH100 million (US$19.8 million) and UAH400 million (US$79.2 million), respectively, with five year maturity

The obligations of Raiffeisen Bank Aval to make payments under the bonds will rank — at all times — at least pari-passu with the claims of all other unsecured and unsubordinated creditors of the bank, except for those claims that are preferred by any relevant law.

As of 1 October, 2007, Raiffeisen Bank Aval reported total assets at UAH 41.367 billion, the credit and investment portfolio at UAH 32.795 billion, the own capital — at UAH 36.489 billion under Ukrainian Accounting Standards and requirements of the National Bank of Ukraine.

Moody's National Scale Ratings (NSRs) are intended as relative measures of creditworthiness among debt issues and issuers within a country, enabling market participants to better differentiate relative risks. NSRs in Ukraine are designated by the ".ua" suffix. NSRs differ from global scale ratings, as assigned by Moody's Investors Service, Inc., in that they are not globally comparable to the full universe of Moody's rated entities, but only with other rated entities within the same country.