Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on April 5 assignedB+/B long and short-term counterparty credit ratings to South Africa-basedAfrican Bank Ltd.

The outlook is negative. S&P also assignedzaBB-/zaB South African national scale ratings to the bank.

The ratings action follows the completion of the bank'srestructuring onApril 4.

S&P noted the entity's "weak" businessposition, "strong" capital and earnings, "weak" riskposition, "adequate" funding and "strong" liquidity.The negative outlook reflects the negative economic risk trend for the SouthAfrican banking system.

The new African Bank commenced business April 4 followingthe final execution of the restructuring of the entity formerly known asAfrican Bank Ltd., which is now in curatorship. The entity in curatorshipformally changed its name to Residual Debt Services Ltd. and the new bank changed itsname to African Bank Ltd. from K2014176899 (South Africa) Ltd. and willhenceforth trade under that name.

African Bank is a 100% subsidiary of African Bank HoldingsLtd.

S&P Ratings and Global Market Intelligence are ownedby McGraw Hill Financial Inc.