credit reporting services

A credit rating agency (CRA) is a company that assigns credit ratings for issuers of certain types of debt obligations. In most cases, these issuers are companies, cities, non-profit organizations, or national governments issuing debt-like securities that can be traded on a secondary market. A credit rating measures credit worthiness, the ability to pay back a loan, and affects the interest rate applied to loans. (A company that issues credit scores for individual credit-worthiness is generally called a credit bureau or consumer credit reporting agency. )

Interest rates are not the same for everyone, but instead are based on risk-based pricing, a form of price discrimination based on the different expected costs of different borrowers, as set out in their credit rating. National consumer credit bureau and business credit reporting service. There exist more than 100 rating agencies worldwide.

Credit rating agencies for corporations

For more information, see Bond credit rating.

Agencies that assign credit ratings for corporations include:

Uses of ratings by credit rating agencies

Credit ratings are used by investors, issuers, investment banks, broker-dealers, and by governments.