“We have reviewed the banking sector of the Republic of Uzbekistan (not rated) under our updated BICRA methodology. Our criteria define the BICRA framework as one "designed to evaluate and compare global banking systems". A BICRA analysis for a country covers rated and unrated financial institutions that take deposits, extend credit, or engage in both activities”, the agency said.

A BICRA is scored on a scale from '1' to '10', ranging from the lowest-risk banking systems (group '1') to the highest-risk (group '10'). Other countries in BICRA group '8' include Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, and Argentina.

“Our economic risk score of '7' reflects our opinion that Uzbekistan has "very high risk" in "economic resilience", "intermediate risk" in "economic imbalances", and "very high risk" in "credit risk in the economy", as our criteria define these terms”, the statement said.

“We classify the Uzbekistan government as "highly supportive" toward domestic banking. The government tightly controls the economy and the banking system, and has a track record of extraordinary support to banks during times of stress”, Standard & Poor's said.