BNP Paribas downgrades Chinatrust

By comparison, Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評), local arm of Standard and Poor's Ratings Services, reaffirmed its ratings of the financial group, citing no urgency perceived for immediate credit ratings change.

"We remained comfortable about its fine tuned management, as we do not expect the company to make changes in its strategy or operations after Jeffrey Koo Jr departure from the chairmanship of flagship unit Chinatrust Commercial Bank," Taiwan Ratings' analyst Chun Huang (黃俊榮) said in a phone interview yesterday.

The ratings firm gave Chinatrust Financial twAA and twA-1 in February for its long-term and short-term credit ratings respectively, with a stable outlook.

The financial regulator's decision to suspend the financial group's expansion and fundraising plans would not pose any imminent impact as the capital-rich company need not raise money by the year's end, Huang said.

Also, the company can absorb the bad debts loss by using its profits alone without incurring any risk of shrinking capital, which in turn supports its existing credit ratings, he added.