Credit Rating Agencies

 

ENTITIES SUPERVISED BY ESMA

 

  1. Credit rating agenciesCRAs

 

On 7 December 2009, the EU Regulation 1060/09 on Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) entered into effect. Following the announcement of the creation of ESMA, the CRA Regulation was revised in May 2011 with a view to entrust ESMA with an exclusive responsibility for the registration and supervision of credit rating agencies in the European Union. According to the Regulation, ESMA is also required to draft Regulatory Technical Standards alongside its traditional role of promoting convergence through Level 3 guidelines and recommendations. Furthermore, the Regulation mandates ESMA to maintain a central repository where information on the past performances of CRAs and information about credit ratings issued in the past are to be kept and made public. On May 2013 the CRA Regulation was revised again in order to provide, among others, for rules on reducing overreliance on credit ratings, for increased transparency with regard to the functioning of credit rating agencies, as well as for civil liability of credit rating agencies. 

CRAs established in EU should be registered with ESMA, while CRAs established in third countries which are active in the EU should be certified by ESMA. The procedures of registration and certification are governed by Regulatory Technical Standards issued by the European Commission according to the CRA Regulation.

 

ESMA documents related to the supervision of CRAs (https://www.esma.europa.eu/page/CRA-documents):

 

List of EU registered and certified CRAs (https://www.esma.europa.eu/page/List-registered-and-certified-CRAs)

Access to the Central Repository (CEREP) for publishing the rating activity statistics and rating performance statistics of credit rating agencies (http://cerep.esma.europa.eu/cerep-web/)