Credit rating represents. Why in the XXI century credit ratings assigned by rating agencies according to the methods of the XX century are unacceptable for making effective economic decisions. Credit ratings in Russia

Credit rating is an independent and reliable assessment of the issuer's creditworthiness, on the basis of which market participants can make informed financial decisions. This may result in a decrease in the issuer's costs of attracting borrowed funds. For those issuers that raise funds against third-party guarantees, the credit rating can reduce the cost of such a guarantee or more effectively raise funds without purchasing a guarantee.

In recent decades, credit ratings have become a generally recognized and convenient benchmark for determining the degree of creditworthiness of federal governments, regional administrations, banks, and non-financial companies. An objective assessment of the solvency of economic entities by independent experts is in modern business practice as necessary an element of doing business and public administration as regular audits.

Credit ratings are often used by banks and other financial intermediaries to make decisions on lending, money market transactions, insurance, leasing, and in any other situation where a business partner's credit rating is required. Many companies choose not to disclose their financial information in the course of business negotiations. In this case, the issuer's credit rating serves as a reliable benchmark for creditworthiness.

Credit rating - one of the most important tools for increasing the attractiveness of borrowers in the eyes of lenders, allowing them to get an objective and understandable indicator of the financial condition of borrowers. The independence of the rating agency from the financial market participants helps to increase confidence in the borrower.

A credit rating makes the underwriting process easier. Investment banks and other financial intermediaries operating in the bond market may use credit ratings when planning and placing bond issues.

Principles for the provision of rating services

Independence: A credit rating is an independent opinion of a rating company on the creditworthiness of the issuer. The independence of Standard & Poor's opinion from the interests of any market participants, government and commercial organizations is one of the most important guarantees of objectivity and impartiality of credit ratings. Along with the high quality of analytics, independence determines the accuracy of Standard & Poor's credit ratings.

Publicity of analytical criteria: the most important practice, giving investors a complete understanding of the analytical approaches of Standard & Poor's to risk assessment. All Standard & Poor’s criteria are available in various languages, including Russian, and are posted on the Standard & Poor’s website.

Collegiality: a decision-making procedure that eliminates any possibility of manipulating the opinion of analysts responsible for the analysis of a particular issuer. The rating committee is the most important mechanism in the process of assigning a credit rating, guaranteeing impartiality of analysts 'assessment, quality control and the futility of pressure on analysts' opinions from outside. The rating committee is formed of specialized specialists depending on the industry and other features of the 5-9 issuer. The task of the rating committee includes a detailed discussion of the rating report for this issuer and assigning a rating at a certain level by voting.

Interactivity: the principle on the basis of which the interaction with the issuer is built in the process of assigning a credit rating and subsequent monitoring of it. Based primarily on information received from the issuer itself, a painstaking, detailed discussion of all possible situations that may affect its creditworthiness. Interactivity implies regular meetings with the issuer's management and constant information contact, which allows to promptly respond to the changes taking place.

Confidentiality of information: a fundamental condition of work, which allows the issuer to guarantee the non-disclosure of confidential information transferred to analysts and the publication of the rating only with the consent of the issuer.

Using rating scales: the scale allows comparing issuers of different economic nature (corporations, regions, municipalities, banks, insurance companies, etc.) in terms of the size of credit risk, takes the issuer and its liabilities out of the narrow industry context.

Constant Probability of Default Research: are carried out on the basis of a wide statistical sample for all rating categories to control the quality of the rating opinion and (if necessary) adjust the methodology.

Rating agencies

Moody’s Interfax Rating Agency

Moody’s Interfax Rating Agency Is a universal rating agency that provides a full range of rating services for all sectors of the economy.

Aaa.ru- issuers, or promissory notes with the Aaa.ru rating, are characterized by the highest creditworthiness in relation to other issuers in the country.

Aa.ru- issuers, or promissory notes with Aa.ru rating, are characterized by very high creditworthiness in relation to other issuers in the country.

A.ru- Issuers, or debt securities rated A.ru, have a creditworthiness level above the average among other issuers in the country.

Baa.ru- issuers, or bonds rated Baa.ru, represent the average level of creditworthiness among issuers in the country.

Ba.ru- issuers, or promissory notes rated Ba.ru, have a creditworthiness level below the average for issuers in the country.

B.ru- issuers or debentures rated B.ru have low creditworthiness relative to other issuers in the country.

Caa.ru- Issuers, or bonds rated Caa.ru, are characterized as speculative and have a very low creditworthiness relative to other issuers in the country.

Ca.ru- Issuers, or bonds rated Ca.ru, are characterized as highly speculative and have extremely low creditworthiness relative to other issuers in the country.

C.ru- issuers, or debt securities with a C.ru rating, are characterized as highly speculative and have the lowest creditworthiness relative to other issuers in the country.

Moody "s Interfax Rating Agency complements the ratings of each category from Aa before Caa subscripts 1, 2 and 3. Subscript 1 indicates that the liability is ranked higher in its rating category; Index 2 indicates an average rank and index 3 indicates a lower rank in that category.

Standard & Poor "s

Issuer credit rating on an international scale Standard & Poor "s expresses its current opinion on the general creditworthiness of the issuer of debt obligations, guarantor or surety, business partner, his ability and intention to fulfill his debt obligations in a timely manner and in full.

The credit rating of debt obligations according to the international scale Standard & Poor's expresses the current opinion on the credit risk for specific debt obligations (bonds, bank loans, loans, other financial instruments).

The values \u200b\u200bof credit ratings according to the international scale Standard & Poor's include a long-term rating, which assesses the issuer's ability to timely fulfill its debt obligations. Long-term ratings range from the highest “AAA” category to the lowest “D”. Ratings ranging from AA to CCC may be supplemented with a plus (+) or minus (-) sign to indicate intermediate rating categories in relation to the main categories.

The short-term rating is an assessment of the likelihood of timely settlement of liabilities considered to be short-term in the respective markets. Short-term ratings also range from A-1 for the highest quality commitments to D for the lowest quality commitments. Ratings within the 'A-1' category may contain a plus (+) sign to highlight more robust obligations in that category.

In addition to long-term ratings, Standard & Poor's has specific ratings for preferred stocks, money market funds, mutual bond funds, the solvency of insurance companies and derivatives companies.

AAA - very high ability to timely and fully fulfill their debt obligations; highest rating.

AA - high ability to timely and fully fulfill their debt obligations.

A - moderately high ability to meet its debt obligations on time and in full, but high sensitivity to the impact of adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions.

BBB - sufficient ability to timely and fully meet its debt obligations, but a higher sensitivity to the impact of adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions.

BB - safe in the short term, but more sensitive to the impact of adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions.

B - higher vulnerability in the presence of unfavorable commercial, financial and economic conditions, however, at present there is a possibility of fulfilling debt obligations on time and in full.

CCC - at the moment there is a potential for the issuer to default on its debt obligations; timely fulfillment of debt obligations largely depends on favorable commercial, financial and economic conditions.

CC - currently there is a high probability that the issuer will not fulfill its debt obligations.

C - bankruptcy proceedings have been initiated against the issuer or a similar action has been taken, but payments or performance of debt obligations continue.

SD - selective default on this debt obligation while continuing timely and full payments on other debt obligations.

D - default on debt obligations.

Stable - unlikely to change.

Developing - a rating upgrade or downgrade is possible.

You can also determine the credit rating of the issuer according to the Russian scale Standard & Poor "s. Russian issuers mean all issuers of debt obligations, guarantors and guarantors, insurance companies located in the Russian Federation or operating in the Russian financial markets. Business partner rating is a kind of credit rating issuer.

An issuer's credit rating is not equivalent to the rating of its specific debt obligations, since it does not take into account the nature and security of a particular obligation, as well as its relative status in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation of the issuer and the protection of creditors' rights under it. The creditworthiness of the guarantors, or sureties, for specific obligations of the issuer, as well as other forms of reducing credit risk, can serve as a basis for raising the credit rating of the obligation in comparison with the credit rating of the issuer.

The issuer's credit rating is not a recommendation as to whether to buy or sell the issuer's debt, nor is it an opinion on the market price of the debt and on the investment attractiveness of the issuer for a particular investor. The credit rating is based on current information obtained from the issuer or other sources that Standard & Poor "s deems reliable. Standard & Poor" s does not audit in connection with any credit rating and may sometimes rely on unaudited financial information. The credit rating of the issuer may be changed, temporarily suspended or revoked as a result of any changes in the information or lack of such information or for other reasons.

Issuer credit rating:

ruAAA.The issuer's rating "ruAAA" means a very high ability of the issuer to timely and fully meet its debt obligations relative to other Russian issuers. This is the highest credit rating on the Russian scale Standard & Poor's.

ruA. An issuer rated 'ruA' is more susceptible to adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions than issuers rated 'ruAAA' and 'ruAA'. Nevertheless, the issuer is characterized by a moderately high ability to timely and fully fulfill its debt obligations relative to other Russian issuers.

ruBBB.The rating of the issuer "ruBBB" reflects the sufficient ability of the issuer to timely and fully fulfill its debt obligations relative to other Russian issuers. However, this issuer has a higher sensitivity to the effects of adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions than issuers with higher ratings.

ruBB, ruB, ruCCC, ruCC.Issuers rated 'ruBB', 'ruB', 'ruCCC' and 'ruCC' on the Russian Standard & Poor's scale are characterized by high credit risk relative to other Russian issuers. Despite the fact that some degree of reliability is inherent in such issuers, they are more susceptible to uncertainty and the influence of unfavorable factors in comparison with other Russian issuers.

ruBB.An issuer with a ruBB rating has lower credit risk than Russian issuers with lower ratings. However, uncertainty or the impact of adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions may result in insufficient ability of the issuer to meet its debt obligations on time and in full.

ruB.The 'ruB' issuer rating reflects a lower creditworthiness compared to the 'ruBB' rating. At the moment, this issuer is able to fulfill its debt obligations on time and in full. However, adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions are likely to prevent the issuer from meeting its debt obligations on time and in full.

ruCCC.The issuer's rating “ruCCC” means that at the moment in the conditions of the Russian financial market there is a potential for default on its debt obligations. The timely fulfillment of debt obligations is largely dependent on favorable commercial, financial and economic conditions.

ruC.An issuer rating "ruС" is assigned when bankruptcy proceedings are initiated against the issuer, a ban is imposed on the main activity, a court decision is expected to impose a foreclosure on property, or in another similar case. In the course of litigation (or external management), the relevant authority may decide to pay off part of the debt and default on the rest. Standard & Poor's debt rating description provides a more detailed explanation of the possible impact of such decisions on the credit rating of specific debt instruments.

"RuSD" rating in the conditions of the Russian financial market, it is assigned when Standard & Poor's believes that the issuer has defaulted on a specific issue or several issues of its debt obligations, but will continue to timely and complete payments on other debt obligations. In the description of the credit rating of debt obligations of Standard & Poor "s provides a more detailed explanation of the possible impact of such decisions on the credit rating of specific debt obligations.

Standard & Poor's specialized ratings assign to certain types of debt, bank loans, investment projects and private placements, using the same scale as for other debt instruments. Private placements ratings include an assessment of the guarantees and collateral required in order to reduce the risk of losses in the event of default Bank loan ratings serve the needs of the syndicated loan and project finance markets and include an assessment of the prospects for the lender to receive funds in the event of default, which is based on an analysis of the value of collateral or other protective mechanisms usually provided for in such schemes ...

Bank loans, private placements, and other financial instruments such as guaranteed bonds, when well protected and adequate to compensate the lender, may receive a higher rating than the rating of the issuer itself. In contrast, instruments that are inferior in priority to the repayment of the principal debt of the issuer are usually rated lower than the issuer rating.

Many mutual fund managers use Standard & Poor's ratings assigned to managed funds to differentiate their bond and cash funds from their peers, and the ratings provide investors with information about the funds' solvency and how well they are managed.

• the quality of the assets that are securitized;
• payment structures;
• legal purity of transactions.

The use of structured instruments makes it possible to reduce credit risks by withdrawing securitized assets off the issuer's balance sheet.

The priority of tranches when issuing structured instruments allows issuance of liabilities with a credit quality higher than the credit quality of securitized assets.

Indicators of the state of stock markets are the Standard & Poor's indices, which are used by investors around the world to assess the performance of investments, as well as as a basis for a wide range of financial instruments, such as index funds, deposit products, futures, options and exchange-traded funds ( ETFs). The S&P 500 index includes 500 companies - leaders in the leading sectors of the American economy and covers more than 80% of the shares of American companies. The S&P Global 1200 Index covers approximately 70% of the world's capital markets, includes seven of the most common indices, many of which are leaders in their regions. Standard & Poor's indices are created as investment portfolio indices that are representative of the market in a broad sense and at the same time have practical significance for investors.

Fitch Ratings

Ratings Fitch Ratings represent opinions on the ability of issuers to meet their financial obligations in a timely manner or on the timely redemption of an issue of securities, including such obligations as interest payments, dividends on preferred shares or payment of the principal. Ratings can be assigned to a wide range of issuers and securities, including states, governments, structured finance instruments and corporate issuers; debt obligations, preferred shares, bank loans and counterparties. Ratings can also assess the financial strength of insurance companies and financial guarantors.

Credit ratings are used by investors as indicators of the likelihood that payments will be made in accordance with the terms on which the investment was made. Thus, the use of credit ratings determines their function: investment grade ratings (international long-term "AAA" - "BBB"; short-term "F1" - "F3") indicate a relatively low probability of default, while ratings of speculative, or non-investment, ( sub-investment) category (international long-term "BB" - "D"; short-term "B" - "D") may indicate a higher probability of default or that the default has already occurred.

The ratings do not provide a definite prediction of the likelihood of default, but it should be noted that over a long period of time, the default rate on US corporate bonds that have been assigned AAA ratings averaged less than 0.10% per year, while the default rate on for bonds rated 'BBB' it reached 0.35%, and for bonds rated 'B' - 3.0%.

Issuers, or issues of securities, that have been assigned ratings of the same level, have similar, but not necessarily identical, creditworthiness, since the rating categories do not fully reflect minor differences in the degree of credit risk.

Fitch Ratings' credit ratings and studies are not recommendations to buy, sell or hold any security. Ratings are not a comment on adequacy market price, the suitability of a particular security for specific investors, or the application of tax exemptions or taxation regimes to any payments on any securities.

The ratings are based on information received directly from issuers, other debtors, underwriters, their experts and other sources that Fitch believes to be reliable. Fitch does not audit or verify the correctness or accuracy of such information. Ratings can be changed or withdrawn as a result of changes or unavailability of information, as well as for other reasons.

The ratings assigned to issuance programs are only for the standard issuance of a given program. These ratings do not apply to all issues within the program. In particular, in the case of non-standard issues, i.e. related to third-party loans or indices, their ratings may differ from the rating of the corresponding program.

Credit Ratingsdo not directly assess any risks, except credit risks... In particular, these ratings do not assess risks of losses due to changes in interest rates or other market factors.

Individual ratings assigned only to banks. The purpose of these internationally comparable ratings is to assess the bank if it were completely independent and could not rely on external support. These ratings assess the bank's exposure to risk, risk appetite and risk management, and thus represent the agency's opinion on the likelihood of significant difficulties, such that the bank will need support.

The main factors that the agency analyzes when assessing a bank and determining the level of this rating include profitability and balance sheet integrity (including capitalization), customer base and management, operating environment and development prospects. Finally, an important factor is policy consistency and bank size (equity) and diversification (scale of operations in different sectors of the economy and geographic coverage).

An exceptionally stable bank. The characteristics of such a bank may include exceptionally high profitability and balance sheet integrity, a very large client base and high quality management, an extremely favorable operating environment and development prospects.

A sound bank with no significant concerns. The characteristics of such a bank may include high profitability and balance sheet integrity, a large client base and high quality management, a favorable operating environment and development prospects.

A bank with adequate resilience that at the same time exhibits one or more of the factors of concern. There may be concerns about such a bank's profitability and balance sheet integrity, the size of its customer base and quality of management, the operating environment, or development prospects.

A bank that has certain disadvantages, both internal and external. There are concerns about its profitability and balance sheet integrity, customer base and quality of management, operating environment or development prospects. Banks in emerging economies inevitably face a greater number of potential externalities.

A very difficult bank that already needs or is likely to need external support.

And by the bank's own services, it can be formalized, expert or mixed.

When formalized approach a number of indicators are identified that make it possible to assess individual characteristics of a client's creditworthiness, and on their basis the formula for a composite index is determined. As a rule, it is a sum of indicators weighted by coefficients in accordance with the importance of the analyzed characteristics. The final index is divided into a number of intervals by groups, classes, categories, etc., each of which characterizes a different degree of credit and solvency of borrowers.

When expert approach the assignment of the borrower to one or another group (class, category, etc.) is carried out on the basis of the expert's opinion about his creditworthiness.

The accuracy and quality of the results obtained are largely determined by:

• with an expert approach - the competence of the expert conducting the analysis;
• with formalized - how deeply and comprehensively the characteristics of the borrower's credit and solvency are assessed and how correctly and reasonably the final score is calculated.

When mixed approach part of the calculation is carried out on the basis of a formalized methodology, and part (as a rule, the definition of a composite index) is based on the opinions of experts.

Methods for assessing the credit and solvency of borrowers differ in the subjects of analysis, the composition of the analyzed information, the composition of indicators. According to the subjects of analysis, borrowers are singled out whose activities have distinctive features in terms of assessing credit and solvency and (since it is impossible to draw up a unified assessment methodology that would equally well assess the credit and solvency of banks, enterprises, insurance or brokerage organizations ).

Analysis and specialized reporting is carried out on the basis of information available about the borrower. International credit ratings, assigned by rating agencies, are used primarily to assess the investment qualities and risk of bonds, and primarily corporate bonds. Some agencies also assign ratings to shares.

Credit ratings assigned to a country as a whole reflect the level of sovereign risk (so-called sovereign ratings). Sovereign risk is an indicator of a country's political, economic and financial stability. In the case of assigning ratings to individual sub-federal bodies and organizations, they speak of. The level of country risk cannot be higher than the level of sovereign risk (sovereign ceiling).

A credit rating is an independent and reliable assessment of an issuer's creditworthiness, on the basis of which market participants can make informed financial decisions. This may result in a decrease in the issuer's costs of attracting borrowed funds. For those issuers that raise funds against third-party guarantees, a credit rating can reduce the cost of such a guarantee or raise funds more efficiently without purchasing a guarantee.

S&P

The International Rating Agency is an analytical research subsidiary of McGraw Hill Corporation. It belongs to the three most influential international rating agencies. As an international rating agency, Standard & Poor’s assigns short-term and long-term credit ratings.

Credit ratings can be assigned to an issuer (national government, regional and local governments, corporations, financial institutions, insurance companies, funds, etc.) or to an individual debt obligation.

In the CIS countries, Standard & Poor’s assigns ratings on an international scale (for liabilities in national and foreign currencies) and on national scales created specifically for each specific country.

The Standard & Poor's family of indices are used by investors around the world to measure investment performance and as a base for a wide range of financial instruments such as index funds, deposit products, futures, options, and exchange traded funds (ETFs).

The credit rating of the issuer according to the international scale Standard & Poor’s expresses the current opinion on the general creditworthiness of the issuer of debt obligations, guarantor or surety, business partner, his ability and intention to fulfill his debt obligations on time and in full.

The credit rating of debt obligations according to the international scale Standard & Poor's expresses the current opinion on the credit risk for specific debt obligations (bonds, bank loans, loans, other financial instruments).

The long-term rating of Standard & Poor's assesses the issuer's ability to meet its debt obligations on time. Long-term ratings range from the highest “AAA” category to the lowest “D”. Ratings in the range from AA to CCC may be supplemented with a plus (+) or minus (-) sign, denoting intermediate rating categories in relation to the main categories.

The short-term rating is an assessment of the likelihood of timely settlement of liabilities considered to be short-term in the respective markets. Short-term ratings also range from A-1 for the highest quality commitments to D for the lowest quality commitments. Ratings within the “A-1” category may contain a plus (+) sign to highlight more robust commitments in that category.

In addition to long-term ratings, Standard & Poor's has specific ratings for preferred stocks, money market funds, mutual bond funds, the solvency of insurance companies and derivatives companies.

The rating forecast shows the possible direction of the rating movement in the next two to three years: “Positive” - the rating may increase; “Negative” - the rating may downgrade; “Stable” - not likely to change; "Developing" - the rating may be upgraded or downgraded.

Moody's

The Corporation (NYSE: MCO) is the parent company of Investors Service Moody's. The international rating agency Moody’s assigns ratings and publishes independent opinions on the creditworthiness and the credit quality of its issuers. Moody’s assigns ratings to debt obligations of banks, corporations, insurance companies, trust funds, regional and local administrations, states, and international entities. Moody's also assigns structured finance ratings.

The company analyzes more than 110 countries.

Moody's uses two different rating systems, or scales, to rate bonds. One of them - the global (international) Moody's scale (Moody's Global Scale) - is used to assign ratings to non-financial and financial institutions, sovereign and sub-sovereign issuers, as well as structured finance securities. The global scale establishes the correspondence between different rating categories and the relative levels of the mathematical expectation of losses in different periods of time. The expected loss includes an estimate of the probability and expectation of a default loss.

According to the Moody’s agency, the mathematical expectation of losses associated with a particular rating symbol and a certain period of time should be the same for all debt obligations and issuers that have been assigned a corresponding rating on a global (international) scale. All Moody’s rating methodologies, rating assignment practices and rating monitoring systems are aimed at ensuring the consistency of ratings.

In addition, in order to meet the needs of investors, Moody's also assigns National Scale Ratings in some jurisdictions, which represent views of the relative creditworthiness of issuers and debt issues within a given country and cannot be used for comparison with ratings. assigned in other countries.

Fitch Ratings

Is an international rating agency dedicated to providing the global credit markets with independent and forward-looking credit ratings, analytical studies and data. Fitch Ratings employees work in 50 offices around the world and conduct capital market analysis in more than 150 countries.

Fitch Ratings is headquartered in New York and London and is part of the Fitch Group. In addition to Fitch Ratings, the group includes Fitch Solutions, the distribution arm of Fitch Ratings' products and services, providing information, analysis and related services. The Fitch Group also includes Algorithmics, a global leader in corporate risk management solutions. Fitch is majority owned by Fimalac S.A., headquartered in Paris, France.

For over 15 years Fitch has assigned international and national credit ratings to banks, non-bank financial institutions, insurance companies, corporate sector issuers, regional and local governments, and sovereign governments. Fitch also rates fixed income debt and structured finance transactions.

Fitch's credit ratings represent an opinion on the relative ability of an issuer to meet its financial obligations, such as paying interest, paying dividends on preferred shares, repaying principal, settling claims and fulfilling counterparty obligations.

Fitch's credit ratings cover corporate, sovereign (including interstate and subnational entities), financial, banking and insurance issuers, municipal and other structures within public finance, as well as securities and other liabilities issued by such issuers, and, finally, structured financing secured by receivables or other financial assets.

Fitch credit ratings do not directly assess any risk other than credit risk. In particular, the ratings do not assess the risks of a decrease in the market value of the rated security due to changes in interest rates, liquidity or other market factors. However, for liabilities to repay rated liabilities, market risks may be considered to the extent that it affects the issuer's ability to make the required payments. The ratings do not reflect market risk in terms of its effect on the size or terms of payment commitments (for example, in the case of index-linked bonds).

In the default rating components of a specific liability or instrument, the agency typically considers the likelihood of non-payment or default based on the terms of the instrument's documentation. In some cases, subject to specific factors, Fitch may assign a rating higher or lower than the bond documentation suggests. In such cases, the agency clearly indicates the reasons for such an opinion in the relevant rating release.

Why inXXI century credit ratings assigned by rating agencies according to methodsXXcentury, are unacceptable for making effective economic decisions

Valery Galasyuk- Academician of the AES of Ukraine, General Director of the audit firm "COUPERWOOD" (Dnepropetrovsk), member of the Presidium of the Council of the Union of Auditors of Ukraine, member of the Audit Chamber of Ukraine, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Association of Taxpayers of Ukraine
Maria Soroka - Consultant of the audit firm "COUPERWOOD" (consulting group "COUPERWOOD")
Victor Galasyuk -director of the credit consulting department of the information and consulting firm "INCON-CENTER" (consulting group "COUPERWOOD"), laureate of competitions for young appraisers of the Ukrainian Society of Appraisers

The issue of building credit ratings is currently one of the most discussed in the media. The growing interest in this issue is due, first of all, to the development of the Ukrainian market of borrowed financial resources. Along with the use of the most traditional instrument of debt financing - bank lending, the subjects of economic relations began to attract additional financial resources by issuing debt securities. So, for example, in 2001 the volume of issue of corporate bonds amounted to 694.32 million UAH. Over the previous five years, this value was only 339.515 million UAH. In 2002, according to forecasts of the State Committee for Securities and Stock Market, the volume of issue of corporate bonds will grow twice more.

In a “functioning” financial market, creditors face the following questions: “In which debt securities can free cash resources be invested in order to provide the desired profitability with minimal risk? Is the issuer of debt securities capable of fulfilling its obligations on them in full and in set time?»

Often for the lender, assessing the borrower's ability to meet their obligations is an insoluble task, since he does not have the necessary information for this. In such a situation, the lender needs to obtain relevant information from independent entities that professionally carry out this assessment. In countries with developed market economies, a credit rating assigned by specialized rating agencies has long been used as such an assessment.

A review of the activities of the world's leading rating agencies Standard and Poor's, Moody's, IBCA, SERM, Fitch, as well as a number of Russian and Ukrainian rating agencies shows that along with credit ratings they also offer other ratings (Fig. 1), but within the framework of this article we we will only consider credit ratings.

It should be noted that in the modern practice of rating there is no single generally accepted definition of "credit rating".

Thus, according to experts from one of the leading rating agencies Standard & Poor "s," the credit rating expresses the opinion of this agency on the overall creditworthiness of the borrower or on its creditworthiness in relation to a specific debt security or other financial liability. The rating is not only a conclusion about ability, but also the willingness of the borrower to timely pay the obligations. "

Experts from the Russian rating agency Expert RA argue that "a credit rating in the classical sense is a standardized assessment of creditworthiness, on the basis of which a company belongs to a certain class, regardless of the level of reliability of other companies." Experts of the Expert RA agency understand the corporate credit rating as “a standardized subjective assessment of the likelihood of full and timely fulfillment of obligations by the debtor to pay interest and repay the main part of the debt on debt obligations and other related obligations to the holder of the debt security”.

According to the specialists of the Ukrainian rating agency "Rating - Bank Service", the credit rating of the bank should "determine the bank's ability to repay (repay) the loan and the interest on it, in a more general setting, to fulfill its obligations in a timely manner and in full".

The bank's credit rating, assigned by the independent rating agency "Transparent Ukraine", “expresses the current opinion of RA" Transparent Ukraine "on the ability of the bank's management to effectively attract resources and place them reliably, while maintaining high (but not excessive) liquidity, and at the same time, to achieve the highest possible profitability, using all existing financial instruments. "

For example, issuer credit rating , assigned by the agency Standard & Poor "s, -" this is the current opinion on the ability and willingness of the debtor to fulfill its financial obligations. This is the opinion on the general creditworthiness legal entity, it differs from the credit rating of an individual issue. Unlike the latter, the issuer's credit rating does not take into account the nature and conditions of a specific obligation, its status in the event of bankruptcy, guarantors, insurance and other attributes characteristic of such an instrument. "

Under credit issue rating Standard & Poor's specialists understand "the current assessment of the issuer's creditworthiness in relation to a specific financial liability, a specific type of financial liability, or a specific financial project."

Short-term issue credit ratings are assigned to promissory notes that were issued with an original due date of 12 months or less, and long-term issue credit ratings - debt obligations with a maturity of more than 12 months.

Currently, there are many methods for constructing credit ratings. This is primarily due to the fact that each rating agency carries out ratings based on individual rating methods. The methods of constructing credit ratings of the world's leading rating agencies (Moody's, Standard and Poor's (USA), IBCA (Great Britain)) are mostly based on the fact that based on the results of a study of borrowers' activities, as well as external conditions, the borrower or his debt obligations are related to one or another class, which reflects the corresponding credit rating.

Along with foreign rating agencies, national rating agencies have recently appeared on the rating services market. For the most part, domestic methods for determining a credit rating repeat or are guided by the methods of the world's leading rating agencies.

Specialists of rating agencies in their activities emphasize that the importance and value of credit ratings lies in the fact that they represent information for the participants in financial markets to make various economic decisions. Thus, according to existing estimates, in foreign countries, about 75% of private investors form their preferences on the basis of the respective ratings; for institutional investors, this value is strictly 100%. In addition, according to Standard & Poor's, “ratings are often used in risk-related decision making outside of traditional capital markets. Banks, corporations, governments - they all use ratings as a guide to making decisions in areas such as trading, swaps, interbank transactions, correspondent banking and other counterparty risk activities. ”

Since the main task of both theoretical economists and practical economists is transformation of information flows into a format convenient for making economic decisions , to the extent that the task of the rating agency is to provide an independent and professional assessment of the borrower's ability to meet its debt obligations based on extensive information received from the borrower and from the external environment and present this assessment in the form of a credit rating in such an information format that external users of credit ratings could make the necessary economic decisions on their basis.

The main elements of the credit rating assignment process are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Key elements of the credit rating process

In this article, we will focus mainly on the results of the credit rating process.

As can be seen in Figure 4, the performance of any rating agency includes two components: the credit rating itself and the rating report. In most cases, only the credit rating has a public character and it is on its basis that rating users make economic decisions. The rating report includes the rationale for the assigned credit rating and proves that the credit rating adequately reflects the borrower's ability to meet its obligations to creditors. The rating report is most often not available to a wide range of users and is provided only to the customer of the rating.

Because the useful is only that information that allows subjects of economic relations to make effective economic decisions, then credit ratings, being information for making economic decisions, must contain exactly useful information. Otherwise, these ratings cannot be used to make effective economic decisions.

It is known that the information was useful from the point of view of making economic decisions, it must satisfy a number of requirements, the main of which are:
- credibility - determines how the information corresponds to the real course of events and processes that it reflects.
- timeliness - determines the correspondence of information to the time of the need for it, taking into account the period of its possible useful use.
- informativeness - determines how meaningful the information is for making a specific decision.
- unambiguity - determines whether the information presentation format provides an unambiguous perception of it by the decision-maker.
- comparability - determines the possibility of conducting a comparative analysis.
Let's analyze the credit ratings assigned by rating agencies in terms of their compliance with these requirements.

At first glance, it may seem that the credibility of the credit rating depends solely on the degree of credibility of the information, the use of which is provided within the framework of a certain methodological approach for determining the credit rating. That is, a rating agency, when determining a rating, should strive to use the information that is most reliable.

Most of the existing rating methodologies provide for the use of the borrower's public financial statements, other information provided by the borrower, and external information as background information. Credibility borrower's public financial statements ensured by consistent implementation of accounting principles and audit principles and procedures. Concerning other information provided by the borrower and external information, then the rating agency independently evaluates and ensures its reliability (Fig. 5

Figure 5. Providing reliable information used to determine the credit rating.

In this way, with some caution, it can be argued that credit ratings are currently determined based on reliable information.

However, it should be noted that the credibility of the credit rating is not solely determined by the credibility of the underlying information ... A situation is possible when the credit rating determined on the basis of reliable information is not reliable (Fig. 6).

Figure 6 ... Unreliability of the credit rating obtained on the basis of reliable initial information

This situation may be due to:
- the use of inadequate methodological tools for determining the credit rating, as a result of which the information contained in the credit rating does not correspond to the real course of events and processes that it reflects;
- errors in the implementation of rating methods;
- significant changes in the processes that reflect the credit rating.

If we assume that the methods for determining credit ratings correspond to the tasks of assessing the borrower's ability to fulfill their obligations in full and at the same time ensure the accuracy of their implementation, then the reliability of the credit rating is determined by whether the processes that reflect the credit rating have changed significantly or not.

Events and processes change significantly quite often, but credit ratings assigned by rating agencies often do not change for months or even years. Consequently, the information contained in the credit ratings of rating agencies is often not reliable.

In addition, the study of the reliability of credit ratings allowed us to draw a very important conclusion. Since events and processes change at every moment of time, the information contained in a credit rating will never be absolutely reliable, unless it is determined in real time. Therefore, one can only say the reliability of the credit rating at a certain point in time either about the relative reliability of the credit rating.

The difference between timely information and untimely information is that timely information allows its users - decision-makers - to respond in a timely manner to a change in the situation, and untimely information does not.

The degree of timeliness of information is the higher, the shorter the time interval between the event and the moment in which the information user became aware of it.

With an increase in the time interval for providing information to the user, in the end, there comes a point in time when the information no longer reflects the actual situation (which is associated with a change in the situation itself). The reaction of users of this information to a change in the situation is no longer timely, since it does not meet the conditions and requirements of the newly emerged situation. Information at this point in time turns from timely to untimely.

The scheme of information flows in time during the implementation of the rating procedure, making economic decisions based on credit ratings and their implementation is shown in Fig. 7.

Based on fig. 7, the condition of the timeliness of the credit rating in mathematical form can be represented as follows:

. (1)

It should also be noted that in today's economic environment, ensuring the timeliness of a credit rating is becoming an increasingly difficult task. Economic development trends indicate that the rates of economic processes are increasing significantly. First of all, this applies to markets for liquid assets, especially to financial markets. As a result, the duration of the "interval of relative invariability of the credit rating" () is significantly reduced.

For example, the official website of Standard and Poor’s in Russia states that “the rating is usually reviewed at least once a year, when a meeting with the issuer is held. However, Standard and Poor’s reserves the right to change the rating at any time during the normal monitoring cycle. ”

In addition, most of the rating agencies do not report the so-called "relative constant credit rating interval". This leads to the fact that users of credit ratings are not able to assess whether a credit rating is timely at the time of their economic decision.

The question arises: how to determine the duration of the "interval of relative invariability of the credit rating"?

As we have already defined earlier, "Interval of relative stability of the credit rating" - this is the time interval during which the change in the value of the credit rating is insignificant for the subject of economic relations - the user of the rating.

Based on the fact that credit ratings are information on the basis of which users of credit ratings draw conclusions about the creditworthiness of borrowers and make economic decisions about their lending, a significant change in a credit rating from the point of view of a user of a credit rating will be such a change in which a borrower from the class “ creditworthy "borrowers will move to the class of" insolvent ".

Hence, The "interval of relative invariability of the credit rating" can be defined as the interval of time during which the borrower will maintain its creditworthiness.

Obviously, it is difficult to determine the point in time when the borrower will cease to be creditworthy. At the same time, we have developed an approach that allows us to determine minimum forecast critical period for maintaining the borrower's creditworthiness ... In determining this period, we proceed from the fact that even in the event of a critical situation, when the borrower will not be able to generate positive cash flows (SC-flows) in the normal course of business to meet its debt obligations, these obligations can be settled through the sale those assets of the borrower, the termination of control over which does not lead to a loss of its value. Based on these premises, the minimum predicted critical period for maintaining the borrower's creditworthiness is determined. We will consider this issue in more detail in subsequent publications.

The minimum predicted critical period for maintaining the creditworthiness of the borrower will be the "interval of relative invariability of the credit rating", since during this period the creditworthiness of the borrower is maintained, and therefore, users of the credit rating make correct economic conclusions and make correct economic decisions.

To achieve the highest possible level of timeliness of credit ratings in the context of accelerating economic processes, rating agencies should:

1) ensure the maximum timeliness of information for the formation of credit ratings;

2) minimize the duration of the procedure for assigning a credit rating;

3) speed up the procedures for communicating information about credit ratings to its users;

For the sake of fairness, it should also be noted that the timeliness of credit ratings depends not only on the duration in time of actions and procedures carried out by rating agencies to determine the credit rating, but also on the time of adoption and implementation of economic decisions by users of credit ratings (Fig. 7).

Based on the above reasoning, we can conclude that today, credit ratings assigned by rating agencies do not always ensure the timeliness of the information contained in the credit rating, and the content and format of presentation of credit ratings do not allow users of credit ratings to assess their timeliness .

As we have already pointed out more than once, the credit rating is information for a subject of economic relations to make a decision on lending to another subject of economic relations. Any decision on lending is impossible without assessing the borrower's creditworthiness. Therefore, the credit rating should contain such information that would allow the user of the credit rating to answer the question: is the borrower creditworthy or not?

A number of publications by specialists of the COUPERWOOD consulting group were devoted to the assessment of the creditworthiness of the borrower, in which they proposed methodology for assessing the creditworthiness of borrowers GMCA ( Galasyuk ’ s method of credit analysis ) ... These publications showed that "the creditworthiness of a borrower characterizes the ratio of credit conditions and the borrower's ability to generate exclusively cash flows (SC-flows)" (Fig. 8).

Let's imagine the following situation. Borrower "X" wants to get a loan of 1 hryvnia. After a detailed analysis of its activities, the bank comes to the conclusion that the borrower "X" is able to generate, in the normal course of business, the cash flows necessary to repay the loan debt. In other words, the borrower "X" is recognized as creditworthy.

Figure 8. The pyramid of the main factors of creditworthiness of the consulting group "COUPERWOOD"

Now let's imagine that the situation has changed dramatically and the borrower "X" wants to get a loan of not 1 hryvnia, but 1,000,000 hryvnia. After a detailed analysis of its activities, the bank concludes that borrower "X" is not able to generate in the normal course of business the cash flows necessary to repay the debt. In other words, the borrower "X" was declared insolvent.

Changes in one of the lending conditions - the volume of the loan - led to the fact that the same borrower is assessed in a diametrically opposite way. Similar examples can be given for any other lending conditions - interest rate, interest rate, loan period, loan repayment method, etc.

With a simple example, we have demonstrated that it is incorrect to characterize the creditworthiness of the borrower without regard to the specific conditions of borrowing.

That is, in order for the user of the credit rating of a debt obligation on its basis to answer the question: is the borrower creditworthy for this debt obligation or not, the rating should contain both information about the terms of borrowing and information about the borrower's ability to generate exclusively cash flows to fulfill this debt obligations (Fig. 9).

The main terms of borrowing that are advisable to fix in the process of assessing the borrower's creditworthiness are:
- loan amount;
- the amount of interest on the loan;
- borrowing period;
- procedure for calculating interest;
- a way to repay credit debt.

Figure 9. Information on the main factors of creditworthiness contained in the credit rating of the debt of the borrower

Table 1

Information on borrowing conditions in short-term and long-term credit ratings of the issue of some of the leading rating agencies

Thus, since the assessment of the borrower's creditworthiness for a specific debt obligation is impossible in isolation from the specific borrowing conditions, we can conclude that credit ratings of debt obligations of a borrower assigned by leading rating agencies are not informative enough from the point of view of credit rating users and do not allow them to make effective economic decisions.

If we talk about the credit rating of the borrower, then it, apparently, should contain information about only one factor of the substitute's creditworthiness - his ability to generate purely cash flows (SCF), since this credit rating is assigned regardless of the specific conditions of borrowing (Fig. ten). However, in order for the rating user to be able, based on the information contained in the borrower's credit rating, to answer the question about the borrower's creditworthiness, this information must be presented in an information format that allows the user to independently assess the borrower's creditworthiness based on the information he has about the borrowing conditions.

Figure 10. Information about the main factors of creditworthiness contained in the credit rating of the borrower

For example, Standard and Poor’s assigned the borrower a credit rating of the issuer A. Information that will be available to the user of the credit rating is as follows: "A - High ability to fulfill financial obligations, but the issuer may be negatively affected by unfavorable economic conditions and changes in circumstances." At the same time, it is quite obvious that depending on the amount of borrowing, the borrower's ability to fulfill financial obligations may differ significantly. This fact was clearly demonstrated by us in the above example. If this borrower applies to the bank in order to obtain a loan on specific terms, then on the basis of the information given in this credit rating of the borrower, the lender (bank) cannot assess the borrower's creditworthiness for this debt obligation.

The unambiguous interpretation of information is largely ensured by the format of its presentation. Most rating agencies present credit ratings in a format that relies solely on the qualitative characteristics of the borrower's ability to meet its obligations. In our opinion, the use of such a credit rating format is unacceptable, as it does not allow users of credit ratings to give an unambiguous assessment of the borrower's ability to meet their obligations. Qualitative characteristics do not have an unambiguous economic interpretation and do not rely on clearly defined quantitative criteria. Let us consider from this point of view the credit ratings of short-term debt obligations of the Moody’s agency. For example, issuers of short-term “Category 1” debt have excellent debt repayment capacity, “Category 2” debt issuers have a stable debt repayment capacity, and “Category 3” debt issuers have an acceptable debt repayment capacity. However, the user of the ratings does not know what is the criterion by which the borrower's ability to meet its obligations is assessed and what should be the value of this criterion in order for the borrower's ability to meet its obligations to be assessed either as "excellent", or as "stable" or as "acceptable" ...

In this way, the presentation format of credit ratings based solely on qualitative characteristics does not allow for an unambiguous interpretation of credit ratings by their users.

It is difficult to disagree with the fact that making any economic decision is impossible without comparing alternative solutions. Therefore, from the point of view of the subject making the decision, only that information has a value that is comparable, that is, it can be used to compare alternative options for an economic decision.

Consider a common situation. An investor enters the stock market with the aim of investing his temporarily idle cash in short-term debt securities. He needs to make a choice, for example, between two types of short-term debt securities X and Y, providing the same yield. To make this decision, he requests information on the ratings of these securities. X Securities are rated Category 3 by Moody's and Y securities are rated A-3 by Standard & Poor's. But, despite the fact that in addition to the ratings themselves, the investor will be provided with their characteristics, the information received does not allow the investor to give preference to any valuable paper, as ratings of different rating agencies are not comparable . Based on the data presented in the rating characteristics, it is rather difficult to conclude which rating is higher: “Category 3” on the Moody’s scale or “A-3” on the Standard & Poor’s scale (Fig. 11).

Hence , the presentation format of credit ratings based solely on quality characteristics does not allow for their comparability.

Figure 11. Incomparability of information contained in the credit ratings of various rating agencies

As we noted earlier, the information useful from the point of view of making effective economic decisions when all the requirements for it are met. An analysis of credit ratings currently assigned by rating agencies has shown that information contained in credit ratings assigned by rating agencies is often not useful enough to make effective economic decisions (fig. 12).

Figure 12. Conclusion on the usefulness of information contained in credit ratings assigned by rating agencies

Existing traditional credit ratings can lead to the formation of inadequate economic assessments and unjustified economic decisions. This situation necessitates the formation of fundamentally new approaches to the construction of credit ratings. One of such approaches could be the approach based on GMCA (www. galasyuk. com).

Issuers that do not fall into any of these categories are classified as uncategorized (sub-class) and with increased credit (investment) risk.

Аaa (rus)

Borrowers and borrowings of this category are characterized by exceptionally high creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers and borrowings.

Аa (rus)

Very high creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings.

А (rus)

High creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings, which may deteriorate under the influence of negative external conditions.

Вaa (rus)

Adequate level of creditworthiness compared to other Russian borrowers / borrowings. Borrowers are able to meet financial obligations under favorable conditions. However, their creditworthiness is more sensitive to negative changes in external conditions.

Вa (rus)

Insufficiently stable level of creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings. Borrowers are able to meet financial obligations in a favorable environment, but in an unfavorable environment, they may have difficulty meeting obligations.

B (rus)

Unstable level of creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings. Borrowers are highly exposed to the risk of deterioration in creditworthiness in adverse conditions

Low creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings, entirely dependent on favorable external conditions. In unfavorable conditions, it will be difficult for borrowers to fulfill their obligations.

Сa (rus)

A very low level of creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings: problems with the fulfillment of obligations in favorable conditions and insurmountable difficulties in an unfavorable situation are possible.

С (rus)

Extremely low level of creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings. Even in favorable conditions, the borrower may refuse to fulfill obligations.

Exceptionally high short-term creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings.

High creditworthiness relative to other Russian borrowers / borrowings.

Average level of creditworthiness among other Russian borrowers / borrowings. Changes in external conditions may lead to an increase in credit risks.

Creditworthiness below average for Russian borrowers / borrowings

Table 8

Table 9

They are used for promissory notes with an original maturity of less than one year.

CI is important because some lenders pay attention to its content when deciding whether to approve a loan application. The information is stored in the KI bureau. The dossier consists of several parts.

The first part is the title one. It contains basic information about a person - passport data, full name, TIN, etc. The next part is the main one. It contains data on the place of residence, the presence of debts. Includes information about the loans taken, the terms of the agreements, the amount of the loan and the specifics of the fulfillment of obligations.

If there were legal proceedings, payments were not made and there is a current debt, it will be difficult to get funds. The additional part contains data about the source of information, requests, etc.

This parameter is of great importance - it determines how reliable the client is. Socio-demographic characteristics are taken as a basis.

The state of RI is influenced by the following information about the borrower:

• Place of residence, region where the person is registered.
• Age.
• Information about marital status, the presence of children.
• Place of work.
• The presence of education and its type.

Based on this information, it is determined whether it is possible to lend money. The data can positively or negatively affect the rating.

Reliability is rated on a scale of one to five:

• With the first indicator of CI, getting a loan is difficult. Few lenders are willing to do business with such clients. This category includes citizens under the age of 21, as well as pensioners, persons who have no education.
• With a value of 2, it is also difficult to get a loan. The age range of clients is over retirement age and under 25. This assessment includes users of banking services who do not have a specialty.
• A value of 3 is given to borrowers who meet most social parameters. They can get a loan from some banks.
• Risk indicator 4 in credit history is considered a good value. Most banks willingly cooperate with this category of clients. Basically, these are people aged 30-50 who have a family, graduated from a university or received a specialized specialty.
• 5 - the highest level of reliability. This category includes middle-aged people who have a good and constant income, live in a prosperous area, and graduated from a university.

Thus, the risk indicator has a great influence when an organization makes a decision to lend money. The higher this indicator, the more likely it is to receive funds from any bank on favorable terms.

Confidence indicator

The indicator of the credibility of the borrower in the credit history determines the availability and quantity of information about the payer. The information is kept by the Credit Bureau. The value is important for banks when deciding on the possibility of issuing a loan. All information is carefully checked by the lender, data from the CI report are taken into account.

If the dossier is positive, contains reliable information that characterizes the borrower as a bona fide and responsible person, the decision to disburse funds is likely to be positive.

If in the credit history there is no information about loans taken earlier, or the data is negative, the loan may not be issued, or it may be issued on conditions that are unfavorable for the payer.

Before contacting a financial institution for a loan, it is recommended to request data from the CI in advance and check it for accuracy and the absence of errors. If the report has inaccurate information, you should contact the lender who submitted the erroneous data.

Indicator example

The confidence indicator value can be zero or one. If it is equal to 0 - information about the person is partially or completely missing. If the indicator is 1, the CRI stores information about at least one loan taken, there is information about the borrower, and they are true.

Risky - have a rating from 1 to 5. For example, if the value is 1, it is difficult to get a loan. This rating on the scale can be given to persons living in remote regions, under 21 years old or over 55 - 70 years old, without education.

Risk indicator 5 is considered the highest indicator. Such a user of loan issuance services is considered the most reliable - he must have an education, a stable job, a family, and an average age.

So, if a person in a CI has only partial information, there is no information about previously taken funds, and the risk parameter is 1-2, it is difficult to get a loan even in organizations that are loyal to customers.

Fico scoring system

Fico scoring is used by many financial institutions. It gives results ranging from 250 to 850 points. The higher the client's score, the more likely he will be able to get a loan.

How the number of scoring points affects the ability to receive money:

• Less than 600 - getting money from the bank is almost impossible.
• 600 - 620 - there is a possibility of getting a small loan of up to 50 thousand rubles.
• 620 - 640 - it is possible to get a loan, credit conditions are not always favorable.
• 640 - 650 - average score. It is possible to take a large amount, and this may require the collection of a large number of documents.
• 650 - 690 is a good indicator. A person with that many points can get a long-term loan on good terms.
• More than 690 is an excellent indicator. A person can get a loan from any bank on favorable terms.

Banks often partner with clients with more than 640 scoring points, but some organizations provide services to users with a low score. If the score is below 600, it is difficult to get a loan even with the involvement of a broker.

Ratings are an essential element of the infrastructure of a market economy. After the global financial crisis, the role of credit ratings has increased significantly, but the requirements for the quality and timeliness of information reflected in ratings have also increased. The authors show that the domestic market of rating services is at the stage of formation, therefore, objectively, there are a number of problems associated with the quality of information underlying rating assessments. In this regard, the development of assessment methods with the identification of the most significant indicators is a priority task of rating agencies. Using the example of well-known rating agencies, the article systematizes the experience of assigning credit ratings and identifies the factors that influence the quality of the information used as the basis for ratings. Special attention is paid to such an indicator of the quality of services of rating companies as the timeliness of their revision. The authors have proposed a rating procedure to improve this indicator.

information quality requirements.

3. Avgouleas, Emilios. What Future for Disclosure as a Regulatory Technique? Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis and Beyond // Draft off.-2009.- March.- P.6.

4. Micu M. The price impact of rating announcement: which announcement matter? // Bank for international settlement.- 2006. - No. 6.- P.2.

5. MonitorYouCreditRisk [Electronic resource] .- Access mode: https://www.globalcreditportal.com/ratingsdirect/html/pdf/productInfo/rd.pdf (date accessed: 25.04.2012)

The variety of market economy entities requires the creation of simple, understandable and generally accepted ratings that allow assessing the dynamics of their development, determining prospects, making decisions on transactions of various types with these entities based on information about the level of their financial reliability (i.e. willingness to respond to their financial liabilities), potential profitability, etc. Rating agencies provide services for the provision of objective, concentrated and comparable information in a market economy.

The market for services of rating companies in Russia is still being formed, therefore, there are objectively a number of problems associated with the quality of information underlying the ratings. A prerequisite such assessments are informative, and the most important requirement for them is to establish the optimal balance of financial and non-financial information about the client. The solution to this problem has led to the development of various methods of rating assessments, which are presented to the market by rating agencies. These agencies work in various areas: consumer product ratings, service ratings (Michelin "sguidebook), corporate debt ratings (Moody" s). These different types of ratings have a common goal: to help buyers, employees, direct and portfolio investors, and banks overcome market asymmetries of information by providing reliable and understandable information necessary for making decisions. Rating agencies in Russia provide a wide range of services and offer various types of ratings, including credit, country, legal, regional and municipal, ratings of shares, mutual funds, etc.

Investment attractiveness ratings are of the greatest importance for the development of markets. According to Standard & Poor's, "ratings are often used in risk-related decision-making outside of traditional capital markets. Banks, corporations, and governments use ratings as a guide to making decisions in areas such as trading, swap contracts, transactions in the interbank market, correspondent banking and other activities related to counterparty risk. ”In foreign countries, about 75% of private investors form their preferences on the basis of respective ratings; for institutional investors, this figure reaches 100%. It is enough for one large institutional investor to make an investment decision based on the rating so that other investors follow suit.

However, in Russian and foreign practice, the rating approach to assessing the investment attractiveness of companies is carried out from different points of view. In Russia, the main attention is paid to the methods of compiling ratings, in foreign practice - the consequences of assigning a rating both for the internal policy of the company and for the market as a whole, the role of ratings in the process of making investment decisions. This difference in problematic issues can be explained by the fact that the domestic appraisal market is at the stage of formation, and the development of assessment methods with the identification of significant indicators is a priority.

In credit ratings, most rating agencies distinguish between the issuer's credit rating and the issuer's credit rating. So, for example, the credit rating of the issuer, assigned by the agency Standard & Poor "s, is" a current opinion on the ability and willingness of the debtor to fulfill their financial obligations. This is an opinion on the overall creditworthiness of a legal entity, it differs from the credit rating of a single issue. Unlike the latter, the issuer's credit rating does not take into account the nature and conditions of a specific obligation, its status in the event of bankruptcy, guarantors, insurance and other attributes characteristic of such an instrument. "

Under credit issue rating Standard & Poor's specialists understand “the current assessment of the issuer's creditworthiness in relation to a specific financial liability, a specific type of financial obligation, or a specific financial project.” In other words, the issuer's credit rating accumulates information on the creditworthiness of the debtor / issuer, while the issue rating evaluates the probability of default on a specific obligation and depends on the terms of the issue and placement of the obligation, the size and methods of its provision and liquidity.

Depending on the time horizon, short-term and long-term credit ratings are distinguished. Short-term are calculated for liabilities with a primary maturity of up to one year, and long-term, respectively, more than a year. According to the level of political autonomy, the sovereign rating, the rating of the administrative-territorial unit and the individual credit ratings are distinguished. The methodology of the sovereign credit market is based on the analysis of a number of quantitative and qualitative characteristics, such as political risk, gross product and structure of the economy, economic growth prospects, financial flexibility, monetary policy efficiency, external debt, etc. However, the risk of default of a particular borrower reflects only an individual credit rating ... Most often, it is equal to the rating of the country's government, or below it. The presence of a sovereign rating also affects the following group of ratings: ratings of government entities in civil relations and ratings of business entities. This division is more consistent with developed countries. The ratings of business entities use information of a microeconomic nature: liquidity, profitability, financial stability, business activity, quality information determines political risks, administrative and managerial and social indicators. The classification of credit ratings is presented in table. one .

Table 1

1. Conclusion of an agreement between the company and the rating agency, which determines the conditions for assigning a rating, the methodology used.
2. Analysis of the company.
3. Assigning a rating.
4. Revision of the rating.

The rating research carried out at the second stage is carried out according to special individual methods of rating agencies. The rating agency guarantees the assignment of a credit rating to the customer in strict accordance with the methodology. The assignment and frequency of the rating review, as well as the sequence of rating procedures and the order of interaction between the structures participating in the rating process, is determined on the basis of the agency's contract with the customer.

For the analysis, the rating agency uses information obtained from the company during personal meetings with the company's management and from data from financial statements, as well as from other (external) sources. This information can be structured as follows:

1. Characterizing the state of the business:

• assessment of insurance risks,
• industry risk assessment,
• assessment of the company's position in business,
• assessment of the organization's management,
• evaluation of the company's strategy.

2. Characterizing financial condition:

• financial policy and capital structure,
• profitability,
• cash flows,
• liquidity.

Thus, the analysis uses quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative factors are simple, reliable and straightforward. In addition, they are standardly calculated, linked into statistical and mathematical models, which makes the rating assessment transparent, and the rating process itself - controlled. It is difficult to assign specific numerical values \u200b\u200bto qualitative factors due to the lack of a unified system for measuring the scale of their manifestation. So, for a bank, an important quality factor is the assessment of its client's credit history. Therefore, it is important to correctly assess the impact of qualitative factors. In practice, statistical models, limited peer review models and the peer review method are used. The method of statistical assessment is the most transparent, but it is applicable for calculating quantitative factors and some qualitative ones, but standardized and reduced to a quantitative value. By the nature of the relationship between quantitative and qualitative factors, credit ratings are distinguished with linear and non-linear correlation of rating factors. For qualitative factors, statistical models are applicable, built, for example, on the basis of rank correlations. Depending on the approach used to assess the credit risk, when calculating the adequacy of bank capital, credit ratings are allocated, calculated on the basis of a standardized approach and through the use of a system of internal ratings.

At stage 3, a rating is assigned. After analyzing and developing these rating methods, groups of enterprises are distinguished in which the objects are sufficiently close to each other in terms of a certain set of characteristics. These classes include assessments of trends in the expected change in the state of subjects, assessment of the impact of forthcoming changes on the relationship of the subject with partners. The selected groups of the state of enterprises are the basis for creating a rating scale, which is the final product of converting the initial information into a rating score. The rating scale is an ordered listing of possible groups of assessments of the financial and production conditions of an entity. The rating scale is limited to a not very large, user-friendly number of classes, in which detailing is carried out at smaller levels, and also the expected trends of changes in certain aspects of the subject's activities in the future are indicated. So, the most common rating scale is AAA, BBB, CCC, D. Comparative analysis of the categories of ratings used to assess the investment attractiveness of bond issuers is presented in Table. 2.

table 2

Comparative analysis of credit rating categories

At stage 4, the reasons for the rating change may be an important event that entails a change in the company's ability to meet its obligations, for example, a takeover, a decrease in income, but the impact of this event on the company's creditworthiness is not yet clear. However, the market can already make assumptions in which direction the rating will be changed. The Agency has the right to revoke (annul) a previously assigned credit rating in the following cases:

• refusal to provide the customer with information provided to the agency under the contract;
• the forced change by the agency of the methodology for assessing the credit rating under the influence of a sharp change in the socio-economic and political situation in the country;
• a sharp deterioration in the initial parameters for assessing the issuer's creditworthiness.

The reliability, credibility and accuracy of ratings is determined by several factors. Firstly, unconditional knowledge of the industry or segment in which the agency operates, and the specifics of the business of those companies and banks that are assigned ratings. Secondly, knowledge of the theory and practice of risk management. Third, regular monitoring of the rating, expressed in the analysis of the current situation in the company, its financial condition, significant events and market position. Regularity means that you need to analyze the activities and state of the company much more often than once a year. Fourth, the mechanisms for recalling, revising or suspending the rating and the history of the application of this mechanism. Fifth, recognition and / or use of the rating by market participants, investors, market infrastructure units, as well as the history of the application and use of ratings. Thus, we can conclude that for rating agencies two factors are decisive: the information used and the time. It is known that the information was useful from the point of view of making economic decisions, it must satisfy a number of requirements, the main of which are:

• reliability: to what extent the information corresponds to the real course of events and the processes that it reflects,
• timeliness: correspondence of information to the time of need for it, taking into account the period of its possible useful use,
• informativeness: how meaningful the information is for making a specific decision,
• unambiguity: does the format for presenting information ensure its unambiguous perception by the decision-maker,
• comparability: the possibility of conducting a comparative analysis.

Let's pay attention to the indicator of timeliness of providing information about the rating. In this aspect, the most important role is played not even by the fact of the initial assignment of the rating, but by the procedure for its revision and rating withdrawal. Investors react to any information regarding the existing rating more strongly than to the initial statement. At the same time, the rating downgrade reduces the company's investment attractiveness more than the absence of a rating at all. Thus, it is important to compare, on the basis of what information a conclusion on rating revision is made, how often the rating is revised and how long it takes to revise and assign a rating (Table 3, compiled by the authors).

Table 3

In a sample of 30 negative ratings in 2004-2007. (in pre-crisis conditions), 60% of revisions were based on the data already announced by the company. It is often impossible to accurately determine the time for each category of the company. But, given that the methodologies of the companies are comparable and each company uses a large number of coefficients, it can be assumed that the announced data is comparable with other companies. And if the procedure for the initial assignment of a rating can and should take a long period of time for a complete analysis of the company, then the procedure for suspension or revision should be carried out faster. Analysts at the National Rating Agency argue that the procedure for reviewing or suspending a rating should not be a consequence of an event, but anticipate it. With an increase in the time interval for providing information to the user, eventually there comes a point in time when the information no longer reflects the actual situation (which is associated with a change in the situation itself). The reaction of users of this information to a change in the situation is no longer timely, since it does not meet the conditions and requirements of the newly emerged situation. Information at this point in time turns from timely to untimely. Analysis of the information used to make a decision to revise the rating shows that the main source is external information, and internal information of the company is requested after the decision to revise. This has a positive effect on the speed of decision making. However, this can reduce the quality of the information. Therefore, the main problem of ensuring the quality of credit ratings is the correct combination of the rate of influence of the rating agency on changing the situation in the company and the reliability of information.

Thus, in order to ensure the highest possible level of timeliness of credit ratings in the context of accelerating economic processes, it becomes necessary for rating agencies:

1) ensure the maximum timeliness of information for the formation of credit ratings;

2) minimize the duration of the procedure for assigning a credit rating;

3) speed up the procedures for communicating information about credit ratings to its users;

5) transform financial and non-financial information obtained from various sources into a format that is convenient for making economic decisions.

Reviewers:

Alabugin A.A., Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head of the Department of International Management of the South Ural state university, Chelyabinsk.

Okolishnikova I. Yu., Doctor of Economics, Professor, Dean of the Trade and Economic Faculty of the South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk.

Bibliographic reference