Fitch Ratings has assigned Grupo Cooperativo Cajamar a long-term issuer rating (IDR) of 'BBB-', with a 'stable' outlook, according to the information sent to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). The agency details that this rating reflects «its good retail franchise along the Mediterranean coast and other rural regions of central Spain as the largest cooperative bank, with a strong presence in the agribusiness sector, a stable and granular deposit base that benefits from its cooperative status and adequate capitalization.» «The ratings also take into account a less diversified revenue profile than its higher-rated peers, despite efforts to catch up, and a huge appetite for southern European sovereign debt. We hope that the risks to asset quality will be contained,» he adds. In addition, he ensures that the group's operational profitability «has recently benefited significantly from rising interest rates and reduced balance sheet risks«. «We hope that risk-weighted assets/operating profit will be affected in the next two years by loan impairment charges that are still above peers, «despite narrowing, and the bottom line being impacted by higher non-credit provisions. However, we expect the metric to improve towards 2%, helped by the positive rate environment, a higher contribution from fee income and cost efficiency gains from early retirements in 2023 and 2024,» he concludes.