ACRA is the first Russian credit rating agency to receive accreditation from the Bank of Russia under the 2015 rating reform and Federal Law No. 222-FZ “On the activities of credit rating agencies in the Russian Federation, on amending Article 76.1 of the Federal Law ‘On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia)’ and invalidating certain provisions of legislative acts of the Russian Federation” dated July 13, 2015.
ACRA assigns credit ratings to various categories of issuers and their financial obligations:
- Banks and other financial institutions
- Non-financial companies (including SMEs)
- Russian regions and municipalities
- Structured financial instruments
- Project finance issuers, instruments and obligations
- Sovereign issuers
- Islamic finance instruments — sukuk
Who needs credit ratings and why?
The main users of credit ratings are
Credit ratings are used as a tool for assessing the credit quality of companies and public entities, as well as their financial obligations. A number of groups can be identified among the main users of credit ratings:
- The state uses credit ratings when investing public funds, and also acts as a regulator
- Institutional investors, companies and individuals use credit ratings as an indicator of the credit quality of assets when making investments
- Issuers consider credit ratings to be a necessary attribute for increasing the investment attractiveness of issued financial instruments and their liquidity
Main requirements for credit ratings
| PARTIES INTERESTED IN OBTAINING RATINGS | |||||||
| BANKS | LEASING COMPANIES | REGIONS AND MUNICIPALITIES | NON-FINANCIAL COMPANIES AND PROJECT FINANCING | SF ORIGINATORS | |||
|
REASONS FOR OBTAINING RATINGS
|
ISSUING SECURITIES
|
Inclusion of securities in the quotation lists of the Moscow Exchange |
BBB+(ru) A-(ru)) for bonds, the conditions for issue of which contain additional provisions |
||||
| Inclusion of securities in the Lombard List of the Central Bank of Russia | A+(ru) | ||||||
| Possibility of PPFs buying securities | BBB+(ru) / A-(ru) depending on the type of bonds | AAA(ru.sf) | |||||
| Possibility of unqualified investors buying securities | BBB+(ru) | ||||||
| Possibility of insurance companies buying securities | BB(ru) | AAA(ru.sf) | |||||
|
OTHER REASONS
|
Raising funds from the budget and state corporations | from BBB-(ru) to A-(ru) | |||||
| Placing PPF money | A-(ru) | ||||||
| Placing internal funds of insurance companies and insurance reserves | BB(ru) | ||||||
| Working with bank guarantees | B(ru) / B+(ru) | ||||||
| Working with escrow accounts | BBB-(ru) | ||||||
ACRA’s ratings are applied in more than 60 regulatory acts. A list of these can be found in the section Application for regulatory purposes.
View the rating process scheme