Find out more about how we supervise Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs). Credit Rating Agencies are financial services firms that issue credit ratings, which are opinions on the creditworthiness of an issuer or security.
Approach to supervision
In line with the FCA's Approach to Supervision[1], we supervise Credit Rating Agencies as members of a portfolio of firms[2] that share a common business model.
CRAs perform an integral role within global financial markets by providing opinions on the creditworthiness of a wide variety of financial instruments. Credit rating activities must be conducted in accordance with the principles of integrity, transparency, responsibility and good governance in order to ensure that resulting credit ratings used in the UK are independent, objective and of adequate quality.
Any legal person wishing to issue credit ratings in the UK for regulatory purposes, publicly or by subscription, will need to be registered or certified with us.
Credit Rating Agencies
Here we list the CRAs which are registered or certified with us.
The list will be updated as necessary and does not supersede the Financial Services Register[9].
Accessing Credit Ratings Information
The FCA publishes CRA information as well as individual credit ratings data on our Public Ratings Database[22] (PRD). Users can search for specific credit ratings and access public press releases reported to us by regulated CRAs.
We also make available credit rating activity and performance statistics on our Central Repository Statistics (CERES)[23] platform. This website allows a user to view and download ratings statistics based on defined search criteria, using ratings data provided to us by regulated CRAs.
Unregulated Activities
Any firm that is carrying out credit rating activities in the UK without being registered with us is operating in breach of the CRA Regulation.
If you have any information on a firm that may be breaching the CRA regulation or are a firm that would like clarification as to whether it is engaging in credit rating activities, then please contact the Supervision Department at [email protected].
