The credit rating of JSC “Yandex Bank” (hereinafter, Yandex Bank or the Bank) is based on the high likelihood of the parent company (hereinafter, the Supporting Entity, the SE, or the Group) with high creditworthiness providing extraordinary support to the Bank. The Bank’s standalone creditworthiness assessment (SCA) stems from the strong capital adequacy position, weak risk profile assessment coupled with the improvement of the business profile assessment to satisfactory, and the adequate funding and liquidity position.
Yandex Bank is a fast-growing Moscow-based bank whose strategy involves developing a business model that focuses on a wide range of financial services offered through digital channels. One of the Bank’s priorities is offering high quality products to individuals and legal entities — small and medium-sized enterprise partners of Yandex Group — that are integrated into the Group’s existing services.
KEY ASSESSMENT FACTORS
High likelihood of support from the Supporting Entity. In ACRA’s opinion, if necessary the SE can provide the Bank with sufficient long-term and short-term financing and capital injections in view of the following:
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The creditworthiness of the Supporting Entity is high, while the scope of the Bank’s business is not a factor that could limit the effectiveness of potential support;
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The Group wholly owns the Bank and exercises complete shareholder and operational control over it;
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The Bank has received support from the Group on several occasions in the form of capital injections;
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The Bank and the Group operate under the same brand and therefore potential non-performance by the Bank of its obligations may pose significant reputational risks for the Group.
The Agency also notes that the Bank’s winding up or deconsolidation would not give rise to critical risks for the implementation of the group-wide strategy. Therefore, ACRA takes into account support from the SE by adding three notches to the Bank’s SCA.
The business profile assessment has been improved to satisfactory (bbb-) due to the improvement of the Bank’s positions in the Russian banking services market, as well as the implementation of the strategic goals set for 2025. The structure of operating income continues to be poorly diversified — the main revenue items (around 76% of operating income) are interest earnings from interbank lending and retail lending, while commission income from money transfers stands at around 19%. This year, the Bank continued to increase the volumes of business in line with its development strategy and turned a profit for the first time. Yandex Bank remains focused on significantly scaling products launched for individuals, as well as developing transaction services and broadening corporate lending. The quality of the Bank’s management corresponds to the scale and structure of its operations at the current stage of development.
ACRA assesses the Bank’s capital position as strong, given the comfortable adequacy ratio (N1.2 was 14.03% as of November 1, 2025), which is due to, among other things, additional investments made by the Supporting Entity. ACRA assesses the Bank’s ability to generate capital in recent years as neutral due to the fact that the credit institution is currently in the investment stage of development. At the same time, this year Yandex Bank began recording positive financial results — as of the end of 9M 2025, its net profit exceeded RUB 6 bln, which will be taken into account in future assessments. At the same time, the Bank continues to be resilient to financial shocks: stress testing performed as per ACRA’s methodology shows that Yandex Bank can withstand growth of the cost of risk by more than 500 bps without violating capital adequacy requirements.
The weak risk profile assessment is due to growth of non-performing debt (around 10% of the loan portfolio) and the Agency’s expectations regarding future market dynamics. At the same time, ACRA notes the limited influence of non-performing debt on the stability of the Bank due to the low (less than 40%) share of the loan portfolio in Yandex Bank’s assets and the high level of reserve coverage. Over the past 12 months, the Bank continued to actively increase the volumes of unsecured lending to individuals — as of November 1, 2025, the retail portfolio exceeded RUB 80 bln. Yandex Bank’s other assets are formed primarily from OFZs, balances in accounts with the Bank of Russia, and interbank claims, the credit quality of which is assessed by ACRA as high. Yandex Bank is expected to continue expanding its retail loan portfolio next year as per the development strategy.
The funding and liquidity position is adequate given the significant volume of the Bank’s highly liquid assets coupled with a high concentration on retail funds (more than 80% of liabilities), which is the largest source of funding as per the Bank’s business model. As of October 1, 2025, Yandex Bank demonstrated a significant excess of short-term liquidity in both the base case and stress scenarios of ACRA.
KEY ASSUMPTIONS
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The Group maintaining its shareholder and operational control;
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Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio (N1.2) exceeding 9% over the 12 to 18-month horizon;
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Sticking to the current business development model;
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Non-performing debt at no higher than 15% of the loan portfolio.
POTENTIAL OUTLOOK OR RATING CHANGE FACTORS
The Stable outlook assumes that the rating will highly likely stay unchanged within the 12 to 18-month horizon.
A positive rating action may be prompted by:
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Further successful scaling and diversification of the Bank’s business;
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Improvement of asset quality.
A negative rating action may be prompted by:
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The SE losing interest in developing its banking business;
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Lower creditworthiness of the SE;
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Significant deterioration of the Bank’s capital and liquidity positions;
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Fast and significant growth of non-performing loans in the portfolio.
RATING COMPONENTS
SCA: bbb.
Adjustments: none.
Support: ACRA assumes that if necessary, the Supporting Entity will be able to provide extraordinary support to the Bank in the form of capital and/or liquidity. Taking into account the support factors, the Bank’s credit rating is set three notches higher than the SCA.
ISSUE RATINGS
There are no outstanding issues.
REGULATORY DISCLOSURE
The credit rating has been assigned to JSC “Yandex Bank” based on the following methodologies: the Methodology for Assigning Credit Ratings to Banks and Bank Groups under the National Scale for the Russian Federation to calculate the SCA and determine the credit rating and the credit rating outlook of JSC “Yandex Bank” under the national scale for the Russian Federation, Methodology for Assigning Credit Ratings with External Support to determine factors of external influence, and the Key Concepts Used by the Analytical Credit Rating Agency within the Scope of Its Rating Activities to ensure consistent and uniform application of ACRA’s methodologies, rating scales, models, and key rating assumptions.
The credit rating of JSC “Yandex Bank” assigned under the national scale for the Russian Federation was published by ACRA for the first time on January 26, 2022.
The credit rating and its outlook are expected to be revised within one year.
The credit rating was assigned based on data provided by JSC “Yandex Bank”, information from publicly available sources, and ACRA’s own databases. The rating analysis was performed using the RAS accounting (financial) statements of JSC “Yandex Bank” as of October 1, 2025 and the financial statements of JSC “Yandex Bank” drawn up in compliance with the requirements of the Bank of Russia.
The credit rating is solicited and JSC “Yandex Bank” participated in its assignment.
In assigning the credit rating, ACRA used only information, the quality and reliability of which were, in ACRA’s opinion, appropriate and sufficient to apply the methodologies.
ACRA provided no additional services to JSC “Yandex Bank” during the year preceding the rating action.
No conflicts of interest were discovered in the course of credit rating assignment.
