Credit rating agencies (CRAs) have played an increasingly influential role in global capital markets over the last three decades and the ratings they assign to the debt issued by corporations, financial institutions and sovereigns are used to guide the investment and capital allocation decisions of the world's largest investment managers and asset owners. In recent years, CRAs have been criticised for their role as "key enablers" of the financial crisis. Policy makers, recognising that rating agency decisions have potentially systemic consequences and impact public finances, continue to debate their role, function and influence on governments, companies and markets. Drawing on stakeholder theory and utilising a mixed methodology for data gathering that combines desk-based research and qualitative interviews, this paper identifies the key stakeholders for CRAs in relation to sustainability for the first time and presents their emerging views on the role and responsibility of the ratings industry in the transition to a sustainable economy. This paper argues that the industry does have a role to play in this transition. However, this role is yet to be defined by stakeholders, or acknowledged by CRAs. It finds that CRAs do not yet embed consideration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues in their ratings criteria or processes in any systematic and transparent way, while the regulatory reform agenda for CRAs also largely ignores sustainability issues. This suggests that the current rating methodologies and analytical approaches of the CRAs are themselves largely unsustainable. It argues that CRAs that do not systematically and transparently integrate ESG issues within their criteria and ratings are actually increasing - rather than simply measuring - credit risk for individual issuers and raising systemic risk for the market as a whole, while at the same time creating negative outcomes for capital markets, the environment and society. It finds that a greater focus on ESG issues by CRAs will enable them to provide a more credible and holistic assessment of the credit risks facing issuers, help the industry rebuild its reputation following the financial crisis and retain a license to operate which is increasingly under threat of withdrawal by regulators and investors, and incentivise investors, issuers and other market participants to devote greater attention to sustainability issues.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Economics - Finance, , course: Bank Financial Management, language: English, abstract: This report is examining the role of credit rating agencies and in further details arguments in its favor and against its favor are examined. In the beginning the role of credit rating agencies is defined and later methodological approaches to this topic are discussed, and afterwards, an analysis of pros and cons of credit rating agencies is conducted. To the end recommendations and suggestions to credit rating agencies for better performances are listed. Generally, credit rating agencies are playing vital role in markets and they united dispersed information comprehensively. Through this approach it is easier for investors or issuers to understand the real position of different concerns before taking any final decisions, beside this fact it is also in observation that credit rating agencies have some flaws which need to be addressed, like favoritism and unsolicited credit rating issuance. It is recommended to have transparency, scheduled active ratings and strict follow up with regulated authorities.

This book challenges amoral views of finance as the leading realm in which mammon – wealth and profit – is pursued with little overt regard for morality. The author details an enhanced ethical emphasis by leading Anglo–American professionals in the aftermath of the 2007–8 global financial crisis. Instead of merely stressing expert knowledge, professionals sought to overcome the alleged impossibility of serving “two masters” – mammon and God – by embracing religious finance, socio-economic inequality, sustainability and other overtly moral issues. Continuities in liberal values and ideas, however, limited the impact of this enhanced ethical emphasis to restoring the professional authority, as well as to more fundamentally reforming of Anglo–American finance following the most severe period of instability since the Great Depression. Providing a nuanced account of post-crisis change and continuity in a crucially important industry, Campbell-Verduyn advances a dynamic, process-based understanding of authority that will appeal to international political economists and sociologists alike.

This Palgrave Pivot aims to examine the bourgeoning relationship between the Principles for Responsible Investment and the Credit Rating Industry. Since May of 2016, when the partnership was initially publicised, the PRI have endeavoured to incorporate Credit Rating Agencies into its initiative via its ‘ESG in Credit Ratings Initiative’, and have been working diligently to find, and create common ground between Credit Rating Agencies and Institutional Investors seeking to be more forward-looking in their investment approaches. However, in recent years the ‘Big Two’ Credit Rating Agencies – Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s – have finally received record fines for their conduct in the run-up to the Financial Crisis. There is a need, then, to examine the incorporation of the Credit Rating Agencies into such a progressive initiative. To achieve this objective, this book examines the field of ‘responsible investing’, the credit rating industry, and the power dynamic that exists between the rating industry, investors, and the PRI (via its ‘Initiative’).

The Economics of Credit Rating Agencies explores the economic and regulatory issues and frictions associated with credit rating agencies in the aftermath of the financial crisis. While ratings and other public signals are important, they can discourage independent due diligence and be a source of systemic risk. The authors highlight the diverse underlying views towards these competing approaches to reducing systemic risk and discuss the subtle contrasts between credit rating agencies and other types of due diligence providers, such as auditors, analysts and proxy-voting advisors. After an introduction, Section 2 provides a broad discussion of ratings in the regulatory framework, as well as how ratings potentially crowd out private information production and the risks associated with overreliance on ratings in market pricing. Section 3 contrasts credit rating agencies with alternative gatekeepers, such as auditors, analysts and proxy-voting advisers. Section 4 describes the difficulty of selling information and the underpinnings of the payment model for various financial information intermediaries under alternative assumptions. Section 5 discusses of rating agency analyst conflict of interest. An important aspect of credit ratings is the feedback effect that arises when a firm's behavior responds to the change in the cost of funding that is influenced by the rating. Feedback effects arise because of contractual triggers, but also through coordination and learning channels. Section 6 discusses these channels and especially the learning channel. Section 7 discusses selection issues including rating shopping and the contrast between solicited and unsolicited credit ratings. Section 8 contrasts ratings across products, including sovereign debt, and rating agencies. The nature of competition and the role of entry and reputation in the credit rating agency space are explored in Section 9. Section 10 examines why ratings matter, as well as techniques for identifying the real effects of ratings. The authors provide concluding observations and takeaways about rating agencies that emerged as a byproduct of the financial crisis in Section 11.

The Sustainable Development Goals introduced by the United Nations in 2016 call for the significant mobilisation of finance. However, although sustainable investments are steadily increasing, there still remain large gaps within financing and the information that financial markets rely on is often incomplete or incorrect. For instance, the financial system has been structured around short-term frameworks and goals while the most pressing environmental and social challenges are long-term. Prices do not convey the cost of externalities associated with social and environmental challenges. It is therefore important to implement the effective pricing of externalities and create a common language and taxonomy between investors, issuers and policy-makers in order to best serve sustainable development. Addressing this challenge, the authors delve deeper into the levers that can be pulled within the financial system to prompt an efficient ecosystem of sustainability-related information, allowing social and environmental externalities to be incorporated into the decision-making process of all market agents. Incentives needed for investors, issuers and intermediaries are proposed along with regulation that can trigger these incentives. This book offers a comprehensive collection of chapters which explore the ongoing evolution of the European regulatory framework, providing essential reading for policymakers, practitioners and researchers alike.