Beijing, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said over the weekend that its ratings and outlook on Bank of China Ltd. (BOC) were not affected by the bank's disclosure of its exposure to U.S. subprime mortgage-backed instruments.

  ;  Standard & Poor's does not expect potential losses to materially erode the bank's capital base, given the bank's adequate profitability and capitalization, according to the credit rating agency.

    On Aug. 23, 2007, Bank of China reported exposure to securities backed by U.S. subprime mortgages of 9.6 billion U.S. dollars, about 18 percent of its capital or 1.25 percent of its total assets at the end of June 2007.

    The bank has set aside 1.1 billion yuan to cover potential losses.

    At the end of June 2007, all the instruments were rated "A" or above and more than 75 percent of the instruments were rated "AAA". The bank's net profit was 32.3 billion yuan and its annualized return on average assets was 1.16 percent in the first half of 2007.

    Standard & Poor's said that it believes that while there might be a book loss for BOC stemming from market revaluations, the eventual credit loss would be minimal. (One U.S. dollar is equal to 7.57 yuan.)

China's banks report no or minor losses from U.S. subprime mortgage crisis

    BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- China's major lenders on Thursday reported they had suffered no or only minor losses from their investment in U.S. mortgage-backed securities.

    "The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) did have a loss from the investment if calculated at the current market value of the securities," said Yang Kaisheng, president of the country's biggest lender. "But the loss is not significant and well within ICBC's capacity to bear."

China Merchants Bank denies losses from subprime mortgage crisis

    BEIJING, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- China Merchants Bank (CMB), the sixth biggest lender on the Chinese mainland, reported a 13.4-percent yield by selling its U.S. mortgage-backed securities, according to Ma Weihua, president of the bank.

    Ma rejected the media report that the bank incurred a loss of 103 million yuan in the U.S. sub prime crisis from its investment in mortgage-backed securities, saying the bank had sold out all the securities in August last year and has not been exposed to the U.S. sub-prime lending market since then.