Russia creates a new rating agency: a global trend

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has announced the creation of a new credit rating agency. Estimated date of the start is the fourth quarter of 2015.

"It is planned that the Agency will have the capital of 3 billion rubles with an equal distribution of shares among investors (banks, insurance and management companies, as well as issuers) in the amount of up to 5%. Advance subscription for the shares will be held before the end of August 2015", - says the Press Service of the Bank of Russia.

"Creating of rating agencies is a mainstream for the major players in the global economy. For example, China and India - the two giants of the BRICS - successfully launched such agencies as Dagong and CIBIL (which evaluate, by the way, our economy as high). And so it is not surprising that such a great country as Russia creates this institution. This will help to make the risk ratings more transparent, to provide a potential investor with real information. In the end, the investor will have the choice of a source of information", - notes a member of the government of Tatarstan and Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Chief Executive Taliya Minullina.

Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Alexei Ulyukayev in a speech noted that due to the expected multiplicity of participants (each of which owns more than 5% of the capital), the rating agency will be able to avoid the perception of bias and a significant amount of capital will allow to speak about the responsibility and the weight of its ratings.

And the experts participating in the thematic meeting of the Central Bank, which took place on July 24, noted that "the credit rating agencies are one of the most important elements of the financial market infrastructure, which activities need to be stable, including to the geopolitical risks". Earlier, in early 2015, some Western and international agencies have downgraded the ratings of Russia.

The participants of the meeting expressed the view that the Russian market needs a strong credit rating agency with a high level of corporate governance and professional competence, the ability to meet the interests of the economy and have the authority in both Russian and foreign investors.

On July 13, 2015 came into force the Federal Law "On the activity of credit rating agencies in the Russian Federation, on the amendment of 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", which significantly changed the normative regulation of the rating activity.

TIDA Press Service

Photo: rg.ru