Credit rating

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This article or section deals primarily with North America and does not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
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A credit rating assesses the credit worthiness of an individual, corporation, or even a country. Credit ratings are calculated from financial history and current assets and liabilities. Typically, a credit rating tells a lender or investor the probability of the subject being able to pay back a loan. However, in recent years, credit ratings have also been used to adjust insurance premiums, determine employment eligibility, and establish the amount of a utility or leasing deposit.

A poor credit rating indicates a high risk of defaulting on a loan, and thus leads to high interest rates, or the refusal of a loan by the creditor.

1 Personal credit ratings
2 Corporate credit ratings
3 Sovereign credit ratings
4 Short term rating
5 Credit rating agencies
6 References
7 See also

Personal credit ratings

In the United States, an individual's credit history is compiled and maintained by companies called credit bureaus. Credit worthiness is usually determined through a statistical analysis of the available credit data. A common form of this analysis is a 3-digit credit score provided by independent financial service companies such as the FICO credit score. (The term, a registered trademark, comes from Fair Isaac Corporation, which pioneered the credit rating concept in the late 1950s.)

An individual's credit score, along with his or her credit report, affects his or her ability to borrow money through financial institutions such as banks.

In Canada, the most common ratings are the North American Standard Account Ratings, also known as the "R" ratings, which have a range between R0 and R9. R0 refers to a new account; R1 refers to on-time payments; R9 refers to bad debt.

The factors which may influence a person's credit rating are:^[1]

ability to pay a loan
interest
amount of credit used
saving patterns^{[not in citation given]}
spending patterns
debt

Corporate credit ratings

Main article: Bond credit rating

The credit rating of a corporation is a financial indicator to potential investors of debt securities such as bonds. These are assigned by credit rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's, Moody's or Fitch Ratings and have letter designations such as AAA, B, CC. The Standard & Poor's rating scale is as follows: AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC, CC, C, D. Anything lower than a BBB rating is considered a speculative or junk bond. The Moody's rating system is similar in concept but the verbage is a little different. It is as follows: AAA, Aa1, Aa2, Aa3, A1, A2, A3, Baa1, Baa2, Baa3, Ba1, Ba2, Ba3, B1, B2, B3, Caa1, Caa2, Caa3, Ca, C.

Sovereign credit ratings

A sovereign credit rating is the credit rating of a sovereign entity, i.e. a country. The sovereign credit rating indicates the risk level of the investing environment of a country and is used by investors looking to invest abroad. It takes political risk into account.

**Country risk rankings**
Rank	Previous	Country	Overall score
1	1	Luxembourg	99.88
2	2	Norway	97.47
3	3	Switzerland	96.21
4	4	Denmark	93.39
5	5	Sweden	92.96
6	6	Ireland	92.36
7	10	Austria	92.25
8	9	Finland	91.95
9	8	Netherlands	91.95
10	7	United States	91.27

The table shows the ten least-risky countries for investment as of March 2008. Ratings are further broken down into components including political risk, economic risk. Euromoney's bi-annual country risk index "Country risk survey"monitors the political and economic stability of 185 sovereign countries. Results focus foremost on economics, specifically sovereign default risk and/or payment default risk for exporters (a.k.a. "trade credit" risk).

Short term rating

A short term rating is a probability factor of an individual going into default within a year. This is in contrast to long-term rating which is evaluated over a long timeframe.

Credit rating agencies

Main article: Credit rating agency

Credit scores for individuals are assigned by credit bureaus (US; UK: credit reference agencies). Credit ratings for corporations and sovereign debt are assigned by credit rating agencies.

In the United States, the main credit bureaus are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. A relatively new credit bureau in the US is Innovis.^[3]

In the United Kingdom, the main credit reference agencies for individuals are Experian, Equifax, and Callcredit. There is no universal credit rating as such, rather each individual lender credit scores based on its own wish-list of a perfect customer.]].^[4]

In Canada, the main credit bureaus for individuals are Equifax, TransUnion and Northern Credit Bureaus/ Experian.^[5]

In India, the main credit bureaus are CRISIL and ICRA.

The largest credit rating agencies (which tend to operate worldwide) are Moody's, Standard and Poor's and Fitch Ratings.

References

^ "Consumer information center FAQ", Equifax
^ "Country risk survey": Bi-annual survey which monitors the political and economic stability of 185 sovereign countries, according to ratings agencies and market experts. The information is compiled from Risk analysts; poll of economic projections; on GNI; World Bank’s Global Development Finance data; Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch IBCA; OECD consensus groups (source: ECGD); the US Exim Bank and Atradius UK; heads of debt syndicate and loan syndications; Atradius, London Forfaiting, Mezra Forfaiting and WestLB.
^ Holden Lewis. "The credit report you don't know about", bankrate.com, 2002-14-14. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
^ Martin Lewis. ""Credit Ratings: How they work", MoneySavingExpert.com. Retrieved on 2008.
^ "Student workbook", CIBC p. 14

de Servigny, Arnaud and Olivier Renault (2004). The Standard & Poor's Guide to Measuring and Managing Credit Risk. McGraw-Hill. ISBN13 978-0071417556.
"Credit-Information Reporting: Why Free Speech Is Vital to Social Accountability and Consumer Opportunity" by Daniel Klein, The Independent Review