Standard & Poor's has upgraded Liberty Financial's corporate rating by one notch. The agency yesterday announced it has raised the specialty finance company's long-term and short-term issuer credit ratings to BBB/A-2, a step up from 'BBB-/A-3'. S&P has also revised Liberty's Stand Alone Credit Profile to BBB from BBB-, confirming the company's success in delivering a diversified financial services business model, according to Peter Riedel, Liberty's chief financial officer.Liberty is the only investment grade rated non-bank in Australia, and is maintaining "a durable capital position," Riedel noted, adding that Liberty's competitive advantage was in accessing capital in domestic and international markets as an independently and publicly rated organisation.Earlier this month Liberty announced a group profit before tax for the year ended June 30 of $74 million, which was an increase of 11 per cent on the previous year. Loan originations grew by 227 per cent to $2.5 billion for the year and total assets grew by 46 per cent to $5.1 billion.